


Penitentiary Wing

by Maldoror_Chant



Series: Keep Those Angels Aloft [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Humor, Canon-Typical Violence, Dean has a temper, Dean/random OCs, Get-Together Fic, M/M, Naomi mind-games, The guys do tend to get around, a fair amount of swearing, ditto for Sam, references to drills / mind control and other wince inducing things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-02-18 14:34:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 50,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13102191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maldoror_Chant/pseuds/Maldoror_Chant
Summary: After his crimes committed in Heaven and on Earth, Castiel expected a swift execution. Naomi could have just left him in Purgatory to die, but she was the kind to tidy up loose ends rather than let monsters eat them. A clean death in Heaven was preferable to evisceration in Purgatory, but Castiel feared the Winchesters might also be two loose ends Naomi would try to ‘tidy up’.Instead of the Heavenly firing squad, however, Naomi decreed that Castiel would return to earth to protect his friends from harm. He would be their assigned guardian angel and Heaven would leave the three of them alone from now on.Oh, but make no mistake. This was a punishment, not a reward. Because Naomi set acondition.(Divergent from somewhere in Season 8/9, though not necessarily where it appears to be at first. Timelines may seem screwed up initially but this is entirely deliberate - well most of it is deliberate, though errare humanum est and all that)





	1. Verdict of Angels

**Author's Note:**

> First foray into Supernatural, fic is mostly written and should be around 11 chapters unless I start subdividing the smutty one.

Castiel looked around the modern office, gleaming vindictively under the hard white lights. He’d never been here before. Maybe this was a Heaven borrowed from a dead dentist. Not that Castiel had ever had a dental checkup in his entire existence- he wasn’t sure why he’d suddenly thought of dentists and drills. Not when pain, imprisonment and death were hovering in the wing, ready to come on stage.

A door opened at his back. Castiel started to look over his shoulder, but the two angels on either side of him tensed just a bit. Castiel kept his gaze resting straight ahead on the desk brutally cleared of any hint of clutter. 

“Good day, Castiel,” said the angel making her way around their group to the high backed leather chair.

“Naomi.” 

“Please, do sit.”

Her gesture indicated an object that Castiel had assumed was a cut-away model of tooth enamel. It was a white plastic bucket with one side removed. It could conceivably be used for sitting, though it looked remarkably uncomfortable.

Castiel, whose vessel could stay on his feet for several centuries if he so chose, looked back at the desk. “It is customary for prisoners to stand while they are sentenced.”

Naomi’s expression did not flicker. “Have it your way.”

In the mundane slice of dimension that contained the office, her vessel clasped its fingers together primly on the desk, while in the higher spheres, swirls of her Grace and Being became prim and self-righteous right on cue. “Your crimes-“

Castiel listened, but his thoughts were not in that room. They were back on earth. 

_At least he’d been able to see Dean and Sam Winchester one last time, when he’d helped them rescue Kevin Tran and the next prophets._

”- of course we could have just left you in Purgatory, but we-“

_And he’d talked with Dean. Dean. His friend had carried so much guilt over ‘abandoning’ Castiel back in Purgatory- how had he ever gotten that notion into his head? If only for that, Castiel was grateful to have gotten away from that place of monsters - even if his path was going to end here shortly. But it’d given him that chance to talk with Dean and take away that ugly biting guilt. He’d explained the concept of penance before Naomi and her guards showed up._

”- frightful _mess_ -” said Naomi.

_If it turned out that this was the last thing Castiel would ever do on his Father’s earth, lifting a little bit of suffering off of Dean Winchester’s shoulders was as fine a final act as he could wish for. Now he was ready to fulfill his penance._

“Do you have anything to say in response to these charges?”

“No.”

“Good. So here is our verdict.”

Castiel wondered which of the two soldiers at his elbows would be asked to do the deed. He didn’t know them. They belonged to Naomi’s outfit, not one of the garrisons. That was good. He didn’t want one of his comrades to be given the task of putting him down.

“You are, of course, demoted. Your powers will be sealed and restricted accordingly.”

Castiel’s attention was fully on her for the first time since she sat down. Demoting him before killing him seemed needlessly redundant even for an unctuous bureaucrat like Naomi. 

They weren’t going to execute him? Were they going to throw him in the Eternity Prison to rot alongside Heaven’s few lifers? 

“In fact I would rather not have you anywhere in Heaven at all. Your mere presence could sow disruption. Many are still righteously angry with you.”

He was going back to _Earth?!_

“I have the perfect job for you. Guardian to a couple of hard-headed humans who seem to get into way too much trouble unsupervised.”

Castiel now wished he’d taken the chair. His greater Being did not need it but his vessel felt unaccountably weak at the knees. 

“Sam and- you are talking about Sam and Dean?”

“Indeed.” Naomi’s expression and Intent were still nice and tight and tidy, but a definite note of sourness spread through her demeanor like wine turning to vinegar. “I am not letting those two wander around without careful management from now on. We never even needed a plural to the word Apocalypse until those vagrants came along.”

“That would be because they stopped the first one,” Castiel pointed out.

That did not earn him any favors, not that he was courting any.

“They need a nanny,” Naomi concluded acerbically. “You will do. Keeping them out of world-ending trouble is primordial. Keeping them out of my hair is appreciated. Keeping them safe is optional, but I am sure you will do your best in that regard.” One of her guards smirked, a faint fleeting expression that’d befit a king of Hell better than a servant of Heaven. 

“And this is my punishment?” Castiel asked, disbelieving.

The multi-winged vibrant being of energy and particles that was Naomi gave what would be a smile in another more sundry dimension. On Earth it would have been an unpleasant smile. The actual expression that crossed her Being and Intent would have started an ice age if it were actually allowed anywhere near the mortal plane.

“There is, of course, a condition.”

 

\---

 

It took both guards to restrain him. 

“No! _Unacceptable!_ ”

Naomi did not seem surprised or affected by his reaction.

“I refuse!”

Naomi hummed.

“That is a- a violation- it is _wrong!_ ” A third guard was now at his back. Castiel was too rabid to wonder where she had come from or to care that there was a sharp tip of an angel blade pressed into his spine.

“Are you done?” Naomi had the gall to ask.

“It is too _dangerous!_ You could destroy them!”

Naomi poo-pooed the very notion. “I am hardly striking at their Achilles heel. In fact it may be all bone in there. And I think I need to straighten out a misconception. This is not open to debate. This is not a choice. This is not even going to be avoided if you take Option B and go rot in a cell on Lifer’s row. This - is - going - to - happen. These two walking disasters are going to be dealt with one way or another. You can watch over them if you choose your demotion and semi-exile. Or you can rot in a cell. I believe the one between Samael and Gadreel is now open. I will be by at some point to inform you of the demise of these two Winchesters in that case. I understand there is a running pool among my crew as to how long they’ll last on their own. I believe best odds are on nine months and ten days. I personally think that is generous.”

The tip of the blade cut into Castiel’s Being and the flesh of his vessel. There were more guards behind him now. 

But the threat to Sam and Dean was what forced him to regain his control. 

“This is wrong.” 

“It is the judgment of Heaven,” was the only prim answer he got. “Do you accept your new rank and charge?”

“...Yes.”

Naomi smiled like a dentist and Castiel could almost hear a faint buzz, high and keen-

Yes...The problem with knowing that his father has ‘pulled a runner’, in Dean’s colorful idiom, was that Castiel could not even add, ‘may God forgive me’. And he would not forgive himself anytime soon. And his friends would never be in a position to forgive him ever again.

Castiel reminded himself grimly of the list of his crimes, recently recapped courtesy of the bureaucrat in chief over there. He deserved this. Sam and Dean did not, though Castiel was sure he was the only one of the entire Heavenly Host who would agree on that.

Penance indeed.

 

\---

 

Dean was leaning a hip against the formica of the motel table, illustrating his words with gestures of his beer bottle. Sam was on one of the beds, removing his shoes.

They both jumped when Castiel alighted between them. The beer sloshed and Sam thumped a boot sole into his chest as he tried to reach for a blade in his jacket. 

“Cas!” They look immensely relieved and pleased once they recognized him. 

“What did I tell you about sudden landings? Phone ahead, man.” And then Dean unexpectedly strode up and gave him a clap on the shoulder, eyes searching his. “You okay?”

Castiel nodded. “I am fine.”

“Oh. Good. When that tight-assed bitch Naomi dragged your hump off to the pearly gates- she promised you’d get a fair shake and she wouldn’t do a number on you, but still, I - we were kind of worried.”

“I am fine,” Castiel repeated. He hadn’t realized Dean knew Naomi’s name, or what she did in Heaven. Had he said something about her to the Winchesters? They _had_ met her briefly. She had appeared before them - along with half a dozen guards - to collect their wayward angel right after he’d gotten out of Purgatory and helped the Winchesters rescue Kevin Tran and the next prophets. But he hadn’t taken the time to introduce her. Had he? His memories of slowly drifting back to Earth from Purgatory and his first few days back were fuzzy. It was only a few weeks since he’d been running for his life from Leviathans in their domain, but it somehow felt like much longer. 

Dean was examining him carefully. His hand was still on Castiel’s shoulder. “You get a bit of an ass-reaming up there?” Then he checked himself and grimaced. “Again?”

“No. Yes, a bit. But no worse than I deserve.”

Dean scowled and Sam sighed. “Cas...”

“But she did let you go?” Dean asked, abrupt and eyes narrowed. 

“Oh yes. I am done with my, uh, ass reaming.”

The tension cracked under sudden amusement. Mentions of anything below the belt and above the knees seem to breed either hilarity or acute embarrassment in humans, and Castiel had never been able to predict which it would be.

“Let’s not talk about dicks with wings and other things,” Dean stated, walking away to settle himself into the rolling chair in front of the cheap table. “Sam’s all better as you can see, I’m good, you’re good, we’re all good and Heaven can take a leap. Want a beer?”

“No.” Castiel’s eyes flickered to Sam, who looked tired and wane but otherwise uninjured. “Sam? Have you been-”

“Right, right, if you wanted a beer, we’d need to get you a dozen kegs. But man, you just got out of jail by the sound of it, we should buy you booze and strippers.”

“It was only what, three weeks?” Sam objected. “I think you have to do at least a year of hard time before you qualify for booze and strippers.”

“We wouldn’t know, we cracked out of the joint after three days - “

The talk washed over Castiel like a memory of warmth and comfort. Those many months in Purgatory without Dean...Castiel had missed him so much it had felt like his vessel was missing a limb, and internal organs besides, like he was hollow and incomplete, a wounded creature waiting to die. This place...this motel room with its fug of cleaning chemicals competing without a hope against more organic components, this felt more like home than Heaven had for awhile now.

“Are you two back from a hunt?”

Sam burst out laughing unexpectedly and Dean hurled a bottle cap at him.

“Oh man! Cas! You’ll never believe it! Dean was a dog!”

“Shut up!”

“I played _fetch_ with him!“

“Sammy, swear to god-“

“A dog? Were you under a spell?”

“No- I mean yes, I was - it was something Kevin found for us. You see, we had this case, start of the week, the only witness was a dog-“

Part of Castiel’s attention split from his friend’s words and reached through the Ether. ‘Naomi? What about Kevin Tran?’

‘You do not need to concern yourself with the Prophet.’ 

‘Isn’t he going to be a hitch in your plans?’ Castiel asked neutrally, burying deep his hope that it would be.

‘He imprudently went for a walk earlier today. He has been collected. He will be kept safe and free from distractions from now on. We were not going to forget such a detail.’

‘Of course you weren’t.’ Damn it.

“That sounds disturbing,” Castiel said gravely to Dean as the mission’s recap concluded. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, it’s in the rear view mirror. Though I almost miss the mutt. After that we took a detour to this place ‘cause we heard about some guys getting their throat slashed, but turned out not to be our thing. Gang stuff.”

“What else have you been up to while I was in Purgatory?”

Dean paused with his beer at his mouth, tilting his head as if puzzled by the question.

‘ _Castiel!_ ’ came a vinegary command. ‘Why are you lingering? You insisted on doing this part yourself-‘

“Have you had any more troubles with demons? Or angels?” Castiel asked, because a part of him needed to hear that at least a tiny shred of all this was a good idea...

“Other than the Gates of Hell?” Sam’s muttered words ended in an unpleasant noise in his throat. 

Dean looked over sharply. “Cut that out.”

“But-“

“I said, cut that out.” 

Castiel looked from one to the other, judging the tension. Gates of Hell? 

The silence threatened to grow heavy.

‘Castiel-’

“Have regular monsters returned to their normal predation patterns? Are you still seeing disruptions from Eve or the Leviathans?”

A faint flicker crossed Dean’s expression. The question appeared unexpected to him, yet he seemed keen to answer it and get away from some words left unsaid between him and his brother. 

Castiel sat on Dean’s bed and listened to his friends tell him all about new werewolf behavior, about trying to track the Alpha vampire - without success - and ghouls and wraiths and revenants. A tangent brought them to their friend Charlie and another dimension opening in something they called ‘the bunker’. They acted like they expected Castiel to know about this place. Castiel opened his mouth to ask for specifics - 

But then Naomi’s voice like a buzzsaw at the back of his cranium reminded him that this one bright light in his existence now had to be extinguished.

“I missed you while I was in Purgatory,” Castiel said, interrupting Sam’s description of a ‘souped up djiin’ that had also ‘tangoed with Charlie’. 

The brothers looked at him with the air of men used to his mannerisms and sudden non-sequiturs.

Deep inside his Being, Castiel felt an indefinable ache suddenly get worse.

“Yeah, yeah, we missed you too, Cas.” Dean waved as if the words had been annoying gnats he was shooing away, but then his eyes on Castiel became sharp. “You’re bringing up Purgatory a lot. You still getting nightmares about that place? Do angels even have nightmares?”

“They don’t sleep, Dean,” Sam pointed out.

“Yeah, but they-“

“I can help you from now on.”

Dean’s eyebrows curved up. “That a fact?”

“You are brilliant hunters. You’ve already adapted to the change in patterns of your regular prey. You will adapt to other changes just as quickly and you will continue protecting this world from the things out of Purgatory. And I will be there to protect you.”

Dean stared, then quickly dropped his gaze on his beer and seemed to take inordinate care in peeling a corner of label off the glass. “Yeah? You run that past the halo brigade? Bet that went down well.” His voice was oddly gruff and he did not look up.

Sam snorted, but his gaze stayed on Castiel, steady and puzzled. “You okay, man?”

Castiel did not answer. He stood up and walked over to Dean. He put his hand on Dean’s shoulder and got the widest-eyed look ever.

“I will miss you,” said Castiel softly, and touched Dean’s forehead before the hunter could do more than open his mouth.

Dean slumped in the chair, bottle slipping through his fingers and clattering to the floor. 

“ _What the-_ ” 

Castiel was at Sam’s side the next second, hand reaching out, and then catching his tall friend before the latter could measure his length on the soiled motel carpet.

He arranged them both on their respective beds. Naomi was there when he straightened up.

“Finally. I expected a soldier of your caliber to be more concerned with deadlines and timetables, Castiel.”

Castiel decided he really did not like the way Naomi pronounced his name. It sounded like the bite of a drill going through wood to hit a steel rivet. He straightened out Dean’s legs, and then took off his boots.

“Stop pampering them,” Naomi sniffed, drawing up the chair between the two beds. She gave the floor a disapproving look, and aimed an even worse one at Sam’s bag of dirty clothes and underwear lying in the way. 

“This will take awhile,” she said, settling down.

“I could assist-“

“Absolutely not. This is going to be hard enough even for one of my considerable skill and experience, and despite the simplicity of their, ah, minds, for want of a better term. Let me work in peace or we will have an accident, and you do not want that, do you, Castiel?”

Not only was her way of saying his name irritating, but she probably knew it if the way she used it so much was any indication. 

On another dimension, her Grace flared out and covered the two sleeping men like angel’s Wings. Or like a sheet at the morgue, Castiel thought bitterly.

As if hearing his thoughts, she glanced up. There might have been the faintest hint of softness in her eyes. 

“You are doing the right thing. This really is the best option all around, even for them. I would say especially for them. Now go away. I do not think you want to be here for this.” 

“I will stay.”

“Are you sure? The process is not always-“

“I will stay.”

“Have it your way.”

 

\---

 

The phone on the bedside table rang a wake-up call - and found itself propelled onto the floor a split second later.

Dean froze with his hand still lifted and made a painful “Ugh” sound, eyes screwed shut.

Sam stirred and winced.

“Th’hell...Dean, stop shining a light ‘n m’ face...”

Dean stared at the wall near the headboard, blinking and bleary. Then he straightened up in stages.

“What...did we drink last night?”

“Hmf,” was Sam’s answer.

”...Did we do Jager bombs? We did Jager bombs, didn’t we. Fucking Jager bombs.”

“Hmf.”

“Or else it was that dog potion. Swear I still taste it four days later...”

“Hmf.”

“Come on, wake up, bitch,” said Dean with the attitude of one who knew the best remedy for misery was company.

The brothers scraped themselves off their respective beds, sleepwalked through morning ablutions, got their shoes mixed up briefly, sorted themselves out, insulted each other on automatic, started packing.

“Back to the bunker?” Sam said with a yawn.

“Yeah. No, wait, we were going to stop in Brookfield on the way.” Dean gestured vaguely with his toothbrush kit. “’Cause of that thing with the thing. That-...the bit about the bodies in the cemetery getting dug up. Maybe ghouls.

“Oh right. Forgot.”

Dean straightened from stuffing his kit in his bag to stare blearily at a decorated print pinned above the bed. Sam’s had another.

“What’s this?”

“Homilies,” said Sam without looking around. “Saw them last night.” 

“Guardian angel pure and bright, guard me while I sleep tonight,” read Dean, and scoffed. “Angels. Right. Sorry, Hallmark, they don’t exist. Give me a line of salt any day.”

‘Yeah. Pity.”

“Pity? Really? Aw Samantha, still got room in your heart after believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny?”

“Bite me. I know there’s no such thing as angels, but it’d have made dealing with the Apocalypse a whole lot easier.”

“Yeah, would have helped having somebody on our side when sticking Lucy back in his cage rather than you, me, Bobby and a whole lotta nothing. And the fucking Leviathans too. Yeah, it’s just us. Angels watching over us- doin’ a crap job then,” Dean said, dumping his duffel onto the small table near which Castiel was standing.

“Yes, Dean, I agree,” said Castiel

Dean scowled as he picked up an empty beer bottle that had tipped over and spilled a few drops when the table shook. He tossed it into the bin.

“Dean, don’t, those recycle.”

“Get Al Gore to do it.”

“Dean-“

Dean walked by less than three inches away from Castiel, the usual essence of the man brushing the angel’s senses: gunpowder residue, sweat, molecules of food and engine oil and the soft light of a much-battered soul standing strong more out of pugnacious habit than any inherent rectitude. 

Dean did not register his presence in the slightest.

“I have done an inadequate job in the past. I have put you in danger as many times as I have gotten you out of it. Probably more. But from now on you will both be protected.” 

From the shadows. From the demons that might still stalk them. And from knowledge of things that would rope them yet again into more and more problems. 

Protected by Castiel. And from Castiel. 

It was more than penance. It actually made sense.


	2. Third Wheel on the Prison Bus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder: Timelines may seem wrong, but this is in fact deliberate.  
> The pacing of the fic starts off slow as Cas is currently deep in morose acceptance of his situation. Hint: This state of affairs will not last forever...

“So, sheriff’s office...Man, I keep getting this feeling that I’m forgetting something.”

“Fucking Jager bombs, Sammy, I told you.”

“Do you want to talk to the undertaker first? Cemetery is on this side of town,” said Sam, peering at the map.

“Sure.” 

“Take this exit then.”

Castiel sat in the back seat, same as when he’d followed the Winchesters all the way to the apocalypse. He looked out a window at billboard signs advertising a hospital in Kansas City, a local Walmart and a Spa facility with the byline Forget Your Cares.

Sam scratched his ear where his sunglasses rested (his head was still sore). “Weird if it’s ghouls. Three bodies dug up in a matter of days? They’re usually way more discreet, and space out their meals better.”

“Could be zombies? Man, I hope it’s zombies.”

“There’s a lack of dead bodies- I mean freshly chewed up dead bodies around town, which would be a better indication of zombies than a few empty coffins.”

“Maybe these are Atkins diet zombies.”

Sam let the map sag as he looked blankly at ahead. “...Then they’d want the protein.”

“Let me have zombies, man. The Quincy thing was a bust- and before that I was a dog for two days to go toe to toe with a frou-frou cook hyped up on weasel spleens. And don’t get me started on that stuff with Charlie and fucking OZ. I want some classic shotgun-to-the-brainpan Romero action before we get back to the bunker.”

“Hmm. Hey, did you keep that recipe Garth gave you? For the dog potion?”

“Why the hell would I do that?”

“Because it might be useful again in the future, dumbass? Here- park here. That’s the undertaker’s office up ahead.”

Castiel had looked away from the window and was examining the profiles ahead of him attentively. 

“If we ever need it again, we’ll give Garth a call and then you can take it. Maybe you’ll get paired up with one of those big slobbering dogs - or maybe a poodle.”

Had Naomi taken their memory of Kevin? It made sense...Kevin meant tablets meant God’s word meant Angels all over again. Castiel frowned. He hadn’t even realized such extensive alternations could be done so smoothly. Even Zacharia had had to mold their souls into preexisting shapes in order to make them forget themselves - but this wasn’t anything like that hack job. Naomi had combed through five years of memories removing and replacing anything that led to the existence of angels in general and one Castiel in particular, all in a matter of hours. She had said she was an expert. Castiel stared at the back of Sam’s head, wondering why this was causing a feeling of strain between his eyes and at the base of his Wings. He’d agreed to this after all. 

He followed the brothers to the undertaker’s office - not that he had a choice in the matter. But if he had had a choice, he would have followed them anyway. 

Ten different kinds of chemicals floated through the air, three of them carcinogenic in even medium doses. The undertaker was a twitchy woman in her forties. Her soul gleamed fitfully before Castiel’s mostly uninterested gaze. His coat brushed one of her nervous gestures as he passed by-

_(Carol Eileen Sandercove, forty five, did not get out much and when she did she felt like everyone who saw her knew she touched dead people for a living day in day out.)_

\- to go examine one of the dead bodies on a slab in the room next door. Without the soul, it was a husk made of meat, bones and gasses. The man had died of old age a couple of days ago and was in the final stages of embalming.

“Oh, FBI? Oh, right- the Sheriff didn’t tell me- but I mean- I’m sorry, I don’t mean- I”

“It’s okay, ma’am - Carol, can I call you Carol?” Dean’s smile was as practiced as his gun draw. 

“Oh, but you see- the Sherif asked me to not share this with the press, but the truth is- you see, I’m both mortician and undertaker - I don’t do the manual work, Lewis does that for me- he’s the one who came and told me what happened last week- he saw the culprits run away from the crime scene. Two of them, medium build, dressed in dark clothes, one of them with either light colored hair or white, the other rather portly-” Carol had watched a lot of cop shows in her life. A lot. “Lewis didn’t get a better view unfortunately, it was dark.”

“So this Lewis saw these two people run away from those coffins - the ones that were empty?” Sam asked, a font of gentle patience. A lot of people were initially intimidated by his height and build. For a few minutes. By the end they no longer even noticed. Castiel had seen the effect before.

“That’s the thing, they weren’t actually empty- we had to tell the families the truth- in the case of the Johnsons, because they have children, Mrs Petigrew did not-“

“Wait, the bodies aren’t missing?” interjected Dean, sounding way too disappointed. Castiel, returning to their side, saw Sam slide himself into the conversation and catch Carol’s attention again before she could truly notice.

“No, no, they were not missing. They were,” Carol’s voice hushed and paused for effect, ”- _desecrated._ ”

“Bits missing?” Dean suggested. Castiel had the feeling the word ‘Chewed’ was going to make an appearance soon.

“What do you mean, Carol?” Sam asked gently. Carol now seemed more comfortable talking to him.

“The coffins had been smashed open and the bodies _burned!_ ”

A short silence.

“Who does that?!” Carol rhetorically asked, providing the follow-through she obviously thought that sentence deserved.

“Only a pair of real sickos,” said Dean wisely.

“Deeply disturbed individuals,” said Sam.

“I blame social media,” said Carol.

“I don’t think it was ghouls,” said Castiel (to himself since nobody else present could hear him). “Unless they were trying to hide their predation.”

 

\---

 

“So. Hunters?” Sam flicked open his cell phone.

“Sloppy ones. Shake N’ Bake one body, fine, but then come back two days later and do two more?”

“Oh, right, like we’ve never had to do that?” Sam said with a snort.

“We fill in the graves again afterwards. Most of the time.”

“They did that with the Pettigrew woman. Carol and this Lewis character didn’t know about her until the Johnsons, when they decided to check the other graves and saw the earth was disturbed. The Johnsons...buried side by side, more to dig up, maybe the diggers were interrupted? If they were hunters.”

“Let’s see what we can dig up in town. Who you calling?” 

“Garth. Odds are, he’d know who’s hunting these parts.” 

Castiel’s calm shattered. His human interaction skills, such as they were, had gotten even rustier after nearly two years in Purgatory, but even he could see like a multi car pileup in his mind, a call to Garth leading to a ‘hey thanks for that Dog spell’ leading to ‘what Dog spell’ leading to a whole lot of questions and troubles and trails which two excellent hunters would track right into the jaws of danger and madness. 

‘Naomi! Your carefully planned lies are about to collapse around us less than twelve hours after you _violated_ their memories and-‘

‘Please put that ridiculous over protectiveness of yours away in its scabbard, Castiel’ he was tartly advised (Naomi was keeping close tabs on them for the next few days in case of just this sort of problem). ‘They will not reach this Garth.’

‘Why- what did you _do?!_ ’

‘And do the same for your tendency towards dramatic accusations. Try to be professional about this. I have done nothing to this human, I have merely taken care to choose my facts wisely to minimize disruptions. This Garth is no longer reachable because he is no longer human, and has been actively hiding from hunters for close to four months. I doubt your monkeys have the memory to remember exactly when any of their conversations with him took place, if they think back on this episode in the future.’

‘You _doubt?_ ’

‘I did my best.’

Castiel severely bit back on the words that would describe what he thought of Naomi’s best. It was a stated fact that he was still on parole here, and blasphemy towards his heavenly parole officer would not earn him any easements of his restrictions in the future. 

The conversation had only taken a split second of time in the mortal plane. Sam was still placing his phone call. 

Castiel watched anxiously as another number was tried, then another. Then a hunter named Andrea Simmons was called. She informed them she hadn’t heard of any other hunters in their area, and that Garth had gone hunting a chupacabra or a werewolf off in Maine awhile back and was now presumably ‘being Garth’ somewhere. 

“Oh. Well, thanks, Andrea. And don’t worry, he did some quick research for us just two days ago, he’s fine,” said Sam.

“He’s not fine, he’s Garth,” said Andrea over the phone (though she did sound faintly relieved).

Dean snorted his agreement and gunned the motor.

That had been too close a call for Castiel’s comfort. Naomi had been very clear. The mind manipulation had been extremely thorough. It could not be done over again if any slip made it through. Further attempts to correct their memories would either not take, or would simply destroy two minds that had seen quite a lot of savagery already, between madness, Hell, possession...

During their trip into the small town, Castiel made plans on how to curtail any further inquiries about Garth out of the gate, and see if there was anything further that could trip them up. 

“Could still be ghouls, covering their tracks,” Sam said. Castiel felt a momentary passing depression that he couldn’t even point out he’d already thought of that.

“Maybe. Ah, nope, it’s hunters.”

“Huh, how do you- hey!”

Dean had taken a very sharp left to swing the car across incoming traffic to a concert of honks, and park it on the opposite side. 

“What the-“

“I just saw Maxwell Higgins walk into that bar.”

“Max Higgins? Are you sure?”

“I’d recognize that stupid duster of his anywhere.”

“Walking into a _bar?_ Max?”

“I know he’s a bible thumper who sees Jesus on every piece of toast, but he just walked into that bar right there.”

“Let’s go talk to him then.”

 

\---

 

Max Higgins had been interrogating the barkeep about an old murder. He had started talking about ‘den of sin’ in reference to the barkeep’s establishment. The barkeep had been getting a sawed-off pool cue out from behind the bar when the WInchesters walked in. 

Dean let himself get overcharged for a bottle of tequila in order to smooth things over, then he had to go back to get a glass of water for Max. The latter sat down in the booth right on Castiel’s lap-

_(Maxwell Higgins, fifty one, a hunter of many years, and a man with the kind of righteous faith that seemed to thrive on hair shirts and gospel in a way that made Castiel slightly uncomfortable)_

Castiel moved away to the last empty seat in the booth, near the window. 

Explanations followed, chased down by shots for Dean despite the early morning (“Hey, I paid for this.”) The case revolved around a vengeful spirit in an old church, the priest of which, Father Messino, was an occasional hunter, one of Max’s friends and his fellow co-desecrater. Max blamed being caught in the act by the undertaker on the Father’s requirement to pray for forgiveness after every shovelful. Father Messino had at least done a good job at the church. The spirit had been disturbed by the expansion of the church basement to create room for a crèche. The good Father had recognized the signs and stopped anyone from getting outright killed, keeping workmen out and lines of salt laid down in the meantime. Who had died there and why he or she wanted to scare a bunch of toddlers half to death was under investigation.

Sam and Dean joined Maxwell Higgins in doing some more of the necessary investigative legwork. It turned out that a lot of people had died at or near the church, but Maxwell had now burned most of these. 

At sundown, Max went back to the cemetery to dig up one more body - Mindy Morris, sixteen, who’d died of overexposure after falling into the foundations while the church was being built over thirty years ago, after running away from home in a fit of pique. Hopefully it was the right one this time. Sam and Dean went to the church with Father Messino to see if anything other than a body had been left behind to be burned. Father Messino covered the Rectory, the church and the Lost and Found boxes while Sam and Dean headed down into the basement. 

Shortly after eleven o’clock, Sam was thrown into a lot of Fisherprice toys and Dean was pinned to a wall against a poster proclaiming Jesus Loves You! The poster had a cherubic looking angel on it. Castiel thought there might be something about this situation that could be called ironic, or sarcastic, or possibly poetic; he could never quite distinguish which was which in modern parlance.

But mostly it was frustrating. He had his orders. Guardian angel or not, there was only so much he could do. He could not contain the spirit of the maddened desperate girl with a touch, he could not stop Sam’s head knocking against a plastic toy farmhouse, he could not stop Dean’s spine grinding into the poster, crinkling paper wings twisting and tearing behind his shoulder blades. Even a normal guardian without his constrictions could only apply the lightest of touches to keep their charges safe, and Castiel was hampered by many more strictures _and_ had Naomi hovering over his metaphorical shoulder like a gargoyle with extra-white teeth. A twitch of his Wings and a flare of Grace stopped Dean’s head from getting smacked needlessly hard against the wall, and Sam never noticed a toy knight that’d been about to poke its lance into his eye abruptly skittering away- and those small actions already earned him a caution.

Then the spirit flamed and burned as Max finally found the right corpse.

“Fourth time’s the charm,” Dean told the ceiling from where he’d slipped down to the floor. 

“Way to go Max,” sighed Sam, picking himself up.

“Miller time?”

“Miller time. Let’s just try to straighten this room up-...you know what, never mind. We’ll never get it right. Father Messino can just claim hooligans broke in, smashed it up. Maybe he’ll get some insurance money for it.” 

It was two in the morning before the Winchesters crept quietly back to their motel room and went to sleep.

Castiel finally stirred and moved away from his corner when he saw their eyes dance back and forth beneath their eyelids.

Dean was first. Castiel laid a gentle hand on his friend’s forehead and let his Grace touch the bruise at the back of his skull. Nothing cracked, no blood clots forming - but signs of old concussions. A _lot_ of old concussions. Curdling of glial cells, thickening of the membrane in certain areas. Since he could do this discreetly, Castiel went about redressing some of the damage. Just a bit. In truth, he had still not recovered from his time in Purgatory. Even this small work left him feeling drained. But if he did a little bit every night, the knock-on benefits would be immense. Dean and Sam did seem to get hurled into walls a lot, their neural matter was showing signs of scarring and stress. And of course there was the liver damage in Dean. Castiel’s hand drifted towards Dean’s abdomen, muscles hard beneath the touch that could not be felt (Dean let out a sonorous open mouth snore but didn’t stir). That was also going to be a long term project...Castiel regretfully left the hangover poisons in Dean’ s bloodstream, since that _would_ be miraculous after the quantity he drank in the last two hours, all while groaning about imprints left on his butt by tonka trucks. 

Once Dean was done, Castiel went to sit on Sam’s bed and rolled up his sleeves absently. This now...he’d felt the edges of it yesterday when he’d touched Sam with his Grace. There was a strange lingering damage here that he could not comprehend. No marked damage to Sam’s cell structure or DNA...yet it was as if his sub-particles had taken a stroll through a neutron star. And some strange sense of scarring gave Castiel the impression that he was only seeing the residual effects of whatever had happened. This was the damage left after a lot of healing had already occurred. What had Sam been up to while Castiel was banished to Purgatory? 

The damage was small but it was insidious. Clusters of atoms throughout Sam’s body were not behaving properly, leading to all kinds of knock-on effects at the molecular and chemical level. Nothing fatal, but it would explain why he looked haggard. His renal proteins and other markers were high and his liver was almost as inflamed as Dean’s, though from a much less palpable cause, leading to stiffness, fatigue and a weakened immune system.

Castiel reached out and put a finger on Sam’s jugular. The atomic damage would eventually cleanse itself, and in the meantime Castiel could make sure no cancerous lesions took hold and break down toxins in his bloodstream. He hadn’t been there when Sam had done something dangerous beyond even the exceedingly high bar set by his being a Winchester, but at least Castiel could help now.

 

\---

 

The brothers woke refreshed. Sam stood and stretched and broke into a surprised smile at a lessening of pain that’d grown ingrained. Dean on his side scowled as if not liking the effects of a slightly redeemed liver working on his bloodstream.

The morning was spent driving. They entered Kansas at around ten, drove past a sign that said Lebanon around one thirty and took a nearly invisible sideroad off into nature.

Castiel finally understood references to ‘the bunker’. 

While the brothers dropped off their effects, he gave himself the tour. Very nice. Defensible, heavily warded - though the Enochian wards against angels had been scratched out. Had they perhaps expected Castiel to come here one day? The thought blended pleasure and loss into a sense of melancholy.

They’d picked up supplies on the way through Lebanon. As the afternoon dwindled, Castiel watched with utmost attention as Dean made meatballs to go with spaghetti.

‘Anything to report, Castiel?’

Dean’s hands pinched, rolled, smoothed. He hummed in a way that even Castiel could tell was completely tuneless. 

‘Castiel?’

‘No, they have not descended into madness or started hemorrhaging from the ears.’

‘Then all is well,’ said Naomi without the slightest hint of irony. There were times Castiel would give his vessel’s left arm to be able to spin a put-down the way Dean could.

‘As well as can be expected in the circumstances.’

‘And is there any other matter we need to address?’

Dean’s meatballs were getting larger and lopsided in a way Castiel found oddly engaging. 

‘No.’

‘Then we will proceed as agreed. This channel will be monitored, Castiel, make no mistake, but since your humans are doing so well, I do not need to sit at their bedside constantly. You know how to reach me if there is an emergency. I will see you in a month for your first full report.’

There was a short silence but a feeling of presence still. Castiel had the impression Naomi was waiting for something further. Maybe a ‘goodbye’ or a ‘thank you’ or a ‘yes ma’am’.

Dean wiped his hands on his pants in contravention to three different kitchen safety rules and went to taste the sauce he was making to go with the meatballs. Then he dumped a bit of the beer he was drinking in it.

‘Signing off,’ said Naomi a little grumpily.

Finally the Ether cleared for the first time in two days.

Castiel was still leaning against the counter, chin in his hand, looking at the cookbook. “Dean, you forgot to turn on the oven.”

Dean went back to making meatballs. Put the last one in the pan, looked down- “Son of a bitch!”

“I told you so,” said Castiel.

“What?” asked Sam from the next room.

“Nothing. You’re not hungry yet, right? Have some beer.”

 

\---

 

Dinner was late but well received, Sam saying at least three times he couldn’t believe what a domestic goddess he’d been living with all this time, until Dean threatened to pile-drive the food into his face.

An odd silence fell as they finished their plates and Dean attacked the prepackaged pie he’d bought. The silence of the halls around them seemed to have stifled their voices. Castiel saw both of them glance around from time to time as if they expected to see someone. Of a common unspoken accord, they went to bed early. Dean doubled back to grab a bottle of liquor he’d acquired in Lebanon and then left again. 

Castiel checked the wards and inspected the corners until he knew his friends were fast asleep. Then he resumed his healing. He knew perfectly well he was going far beyond what a guardian angel would technically be responsible for, and did not give a damn. All Naomi would care about was that he did not do anything the brothers would qualify as miraculous. Since Dean had never appreciated the scarring on his own liver and arteries, removing it would go unnoticed. Sam’s damage might be more arguable, but since Naomi was not in the immediate wavelength anymore, Castiel did as he pleased for the few minutes of effort he could expend before the drain started to get to him. He could do more than this if he chose, but a good soldier kept reserves on hand for possible attack or emergencies. So did guardians. At least this one did. 

Around three in the morning, he was sitting at the long table, flipping through an old newspaper, some notes, books, anything he could find and which he could put back exactly the same way afterwards.

He’d been gone a long time, nearly two years in Purgatory, but not much had changed in the world when all was said and done. The brothers had been journaling somewhat haphazardly. Sam’s notes were interesting; not really a journal, more a running research paper on applications of Hunter’s Lore and a lot of references to the Men Of Letters. It looked to be fascinating and Castiel knew he would wile away many a long night reading this in the future but tonight....his fingers reached for the dog-eared leather-bound notebook that’d been casually tossed aside earlier after a single entry of ‘Ghost- Brookfield MS - torched w/ Max Higgins’ had been added.

Dean’s journal read more like a diary, same as his father’s - in a handwriting that was just about as far from his father’s as could be and not be cuneiform. Castiel knew he would read every word in the coming nights, but right now he let the pages fall where they would, days of Dean’s life flickering by as the angel tried to make out the words on a superficial level. 

A policeman friend who turned out to be a witch, with a dog familiar described only as ‘Oh Mama!’ 

A ghost that turned out not to be dead after all (‘fucking humans!’ had been scribbled in the margin). 

A growing mention of the Gates of Hell as the days flipped by. Of Trials. A note that Sam was getting worse. What had they gotten up to? Oddly enough, the journal seemed to be missing pages. What it wasn’t missing was coffee stains, water damage, ripped out corners, phone numbers and notes scribbled here and there. Also doodles of guns firing, and little symbols that were either gnostic references to the end of times as represented by the small-case letter Omega, or else pictures of cleavage. The missing pages were probably lost somewhere out of carelessness.

Castiel leaned back for a moment and looked around the large space. A library of all places, a center of knowledge; what a place for the Winchesters to end up after decades on the road. He had the feeling that Naomi would look on this as rats invading the library of Alexandria and making a nest in the most venerated tomes, but Castiel wanted to see his friends live and work here, relax and learn...Evidence of Sam and Dean’s presence was everywhere, smells and traces on walls and tables, favorite foods, burger wrappers in the bin alongside a number of beer caps, their books and journals, a pinboard of photos and evidence that no longer needed to pack itself into a trunk come daylight, their tools and their weapons. It was them. The only thing missing was the persistent smell of motel rooms, and Castiel did not regret that.

He would be leaving his own traces here. Not visible to the brothers, of course. Castiel was locked out of their dimension now in the same way cupids and other minor angelic orders were, only able to affect the mundane in strictly defined ways. But in his eyes, his Light was shining against the walls, the waves of his Grace sent flickers through the electrical system, the movement of his Wings echoed through the dimensions to set motes of dust dancing in the air. The tiny signs joined the others, blended with them. 

This was home. 

It was a good home.


	3. Pacing Around the Prison Cell

Sam got up shortly past seven and spent a minute looking at his face and eyes in the mirror with a pleased air, perhaps noting the lack of grayness and signs of strain. He put on his sweats, slipped his phone in his pocket, downed a granola bar and a glass of water standing at the kitchen counter and then headed out for a run.

Castiel tensed as Sam crossed the threshold. He did not know what to expect. He deliberately held himself still as Sam finished stretching and took off at a warm-up pace. 

Nothing. No pain, no pull, no twang - the feeling of faint anxiety was probably only Castiel’s, and not due to Naomi’s constrictions. But he was in the bunker with Dean nearby, so he was presumably anchored here. 

He could _feel_ Sam progressing on his mental map of the world. Naomi had also removed the Enochian angel wards on the brothers’ rib-cages. Of course. But since he was officially their guardian angel, Castiel did have to know where his charges were. One more imposition to choke down in the name of supposed common sense.

Castiel flexed his Wings and then he was _there_ , a few feet ahead of Sam. Sam passed him by at a quick running pace. Castiel waited, curious.

Ten feet, fifteen...how long was his leash? 

Then the effect triggered.

Yes, it was definitely a pull. And a twang. And also painful.

Castiel gasped, and his Wings flared out reflexively (a bird in a nearby bush suddenly burst into song). 

He was ten feet ahead of Sam again. 

He had...what? Perhaps twenty feet of space to play with? Probably around eighteen, Castiel guessed; when it came to the material plane, Naomi had never gotten the hang of any measurement system other than the biblical cubit. She was rather hidebound. Twelve cubits would be her style. So was using an angelic choke chain, come to think of it.

Sam passed him again, looking pleased with the fresh crisp morning air and the way his muscles were warming. 

Castiel let him go by, but did not let him get too far ahead this time. Instead he reached through Ether until he found the other pin in his Being’s inner map. 

A flicker and he was at Dean’s bedside. Dean was sprawled out on his back, half out of the covers, snoring faintly. 

A guardian angel should not wander away from his charges, but at least he could fly from one to the other when they split up. He might be tethered, but at least his wings hadn’t been clipped, Castiel thought with a tinge of bitterness. 

Still, Naomi had not needed to do that, put a leash around his neck. He would have been here for the Winchesters even if she hadn’t-...but he understood why she did it. She did not want him wandering around, interfering with things that were no longer his remit, or getting back into heaven and causing trouble. Trouble seemed to be Naomi’s biggest bugbear.

Dean snored again. He was relaxed, limbs loose, fingers barely curled near his waist. The rest of the bunker was silent. The moment was...oddly intimate in a way that Castiel hadn’t anticipated it might be. 

His Wings lifted as gently as possible, keeping the quiet of the moment intact. The smallest drift and he was back with Sam.

Sam crossed a small rutted path, avoiding mud in one of the gulleys. He slowed to a brisk walk, looking at his watch, then started running again. 

Castiel stayed put, watching his friend get ahead.

Could he resist the pull? Would the pain conquer him? He might have to move away from his charges in order to protect them one day.

When Sam was almost twenty feet away, the pull eased. Castiel felt a moment of hope-

_Wham!_

Face first in a bush.

...Apparently the ‘pull’ was not just a feeling, it was the drawing back of a slingshot’s elastic, and Castiel had just found out what it was like to be the projectile.

“Really, Naomi?” Castiel muttered as he lifted his head. But then he froze.

The tether had hurled him ten feet behind Sam. Who had spun around, drawn a gun from an ankle holster and was now walking towards him, eyes sweeping the area and centering on the shaking bush. Castiel had flexed his Wings in an instinctive attempt to stop his unintentional flight and it’d caused a sudden focused burst of breeze.

Castiel’s throat tightened, oddly affected by the sight of Sam reacting to his presence, even if it was in the gun-waving kind of way.

“It’s alright, Sam. Just a bad landing,” he said loudly enough to be heard - to have been heard in the mundane plane. Useless? Of course. But it also made him feel better for reasons he decided not to bother examining.

Sam came up, prodded the bush with his foot and looked around.

Then his phone rang, making him jump.

He slipped it from his pocket and glanced down. Castiel, right beside him, saw Dean on the caller ID. 

His Wings flared tensely. A sliver of a moment later he was in the bunker - a light fixture far overhead in the kitchen area swung gently.

Dean, in a ratty bathrobe over t-shirt and sweats, grunted as the line connected. “Hey, you out-” His expression went hard, dangerous. “Why are you out of breath? You okay?”

A few words from Sam and his brother relaxed. “Exercise? Running? You better be running away from something clawed or fanged then, because only long-haired hipster douches ‘jog’ for their exercise. Oh wait, never mind.” His tone was sarcastic. The smile on his face was a small blessing to his guardian angel. It measured how much his brother’s health had concerned him lately.

“Me? You kidding? Nah, something woke me up. Not sure what. I’m putting Mr Coffee to work. French toast when you get back, Marathon Man. Nah, it’s just that I feel so sorry for you.”

“I feel sorry for _you_ ,” said Sam as Castiel landed near him. “You’re thirty five going on three hundred at this time of the morning. Right. Screw you,” he added amiably before hanging up and resuming his run. Castiel followed him, slipping through the dimensions like a flickering shadow. 

 

\---

 

Mundane activities followed each other like the pages in a book of hours. Dean washed the car, Sam studied some texts. They called friends, sent emails, talked about an odd rain of fish in Wisconsin, drank beer, argued over acquiring a pool table. 

That day, that evening, and the day after that, Castiel watched. He didn’t really need to, since the chances of danger in the well protected bunker were minimal. But it wasn’t as if there was anything else for him to do. And he did not mind. 

A three day trip to find a possible witch in a small town near Denver proved fruitless. A witch had almost certainly been there, the brothers determined, running some kind of scam by selling curses that backfired after one use, but he or she had skipped town after only a few days, knowing hunters would soon be on the trail of injured victims. The watchword was given to the hunter network and then it was back to the bunker again. 

As days passed and Castiel watched, he noted things. Dean was occasionally somber or agitated for no explainable reason. He’d rub his knuckles, tap his fingers, get up and tour the bunker, end up in the shooting range to put series of neat diamonds into targets and then spent an hour cleaning his gun, and just occasionally looking up and staring hard all around him as if looking for something that just had to be there.

Sam’s healing was not as satisfactory as Castiel had hoped. All he could do at this point was stop Sam’s organs from getting worn and frayed while the sub-particle damage cleared itself, which was going to take a long time at this rate. But the nightly shoring up of his body left Sam healthier and happier. For the most part. He seemed satisfied digging through archives, putting together pieces of arcane puzzles not unearthed for centuries or millenia, indexing and recording and researching. There were times when he’d also look around the silent library as if searching for someone...but most times when his attention wandered, his gaze would turn inward and something like sadness and resignation would come over his features.

Castiel watched. It was all he could do. He could not understand these tides that moved his friends; not without invading their privacy in a way he had not allowed himself in a very long time, and would certainly not allow himself now. But he saw their feelings on their faces, brief and fleeting, in their moments of being watched unawares.

Castiel watched. It was rare to see a Winchester with his guard down.

 

\---

 

The brothers had tracked down their prey at an optimal two in the afternoon. Best time to surprise a bunch of vampires. Eight of them would have been an unassailable challenge once upon a time. Now it was a day at the office for the men who had caged the Devil and ended the Leviathans. 

The first two monsters died quickly, then it became a game of cat and mouse. The vampires, predictably, went from scornful of their oh-so-human opponents, to cautious, to worried, to terrified and then to dead in a record short time. 

Castiel frowned as he watched the brothers operate. This was a normal hunt, one of many he’d seen them on, yet there was something a bit off here. A constraint he did not understand. They were not talking. They were almost avoiding each other. Their gaze would be on the other’s back but flinching away from direct eye contact.

This left a small blind spot on their left. Castiel, leaning against the wall, flexed a Wing to make a floorboard in the hallway outside creak under the foot of the sole surviving vampire - a cautious one, and smart since she had decided to arm herself conventionally. 

Dean tensed, a live wire of muscle and trigger reflex, eyes narrowed on the doorway.

“Gun!” he shouted and dived for cover before his would-be attacker could even register his presence and bring her weapon to bear. 

Sam, out of sight and line of fire, silently stepped back and vanished out of the front door of the house. Circling around towards the back door or one of the open windows behind his prey, undoubtedly. 

Surrounded by the bodies of her ‘family’, the vampire’s face convulsed with fear and hate- and then she screamed like a death mourner of olden times and fired the gun in Dean’s general direction. But Dean had dodge-rolled behind a ratty corner couch- and behind a headless thickset vampire who’d initially been sleeping there. The vampire attacking him was too blinded to notice, or figure out that her small gun could perhaps punch a bullet through one or the other of those obstacles, but not both. She just moved towards Dean, screaming and emptying her clip. One bullet hit the body in its thick belly, the others all missed and hit the wall or the couch a few feet away from their intended target. 

“Really?” muttered Dean, rolling his eyes behind his impromptu shelter. 

Click click click- the vampire stared down at the gun as if she had no idea why it was suddenly making those noises.

“Really?!” said Dean, surging over the couch, machete gripped in his hand, visibly more annoyed by her ineptitude with a firearm than at her attempts to kill him.

The vampire looked up and hurled the gun at his head.

Dean dodged it and scowled. “Now you’re just embarrassing me.” 

Swish- thud.

Sam, who’d been coming up fast and quiet behind the target with his own raised weapon, made a face. “You should have stayed under cover, I had that.”

Dean produced a crude snort. 

Silence settled in the old hunting cabin. The brothers looked around, listened, glanced at each other.

Sam looked grave. “Did you see Cindy?”

“No. You didn’t either I take it. Hey, Cindy?! Cindy McAllistair?!”

Castiel looked around. And then he _looked around_. A small breeze fluttered a curtain - both brothers jumped and swung machetes around suspiciously. Then Castiel was in the basement, more of a crude dug-out beneath the abandoned hunting lodge overhead. 

A thin girl was dying on the cold floor, throat damaged, body going into shock from blood loss. Castiel did the quickest multi-wave recon of his career - the angel equivalent of a furtive glance over his shoulder - and touched her quickly.

(Cindy McAllistair, seventeen, ran away two years ago from a broken family and uncaring mother and a brother falling hopelessly into a drug habit until everywhere she looked hurt more than the open road and the friends she made there amongst the dangers-)

Cindy’s thin chest heaved once, then her breathing settled, still too shallow but a faint warmth had invaded her. Shock was ebbing, her body managed to get a ragged handle on coping with hypovolemic shock.

Castiel could feel Naomi’s attention on him like a sudden searchlight beam on his shoulders, but he was now innocently patting the child’s forehead in an intervention-free gesture of comfort that was completely Scripture-approved.

Naomi didn’t say anything, but that feeling of being a bug under a microscope lasted for the quarter hour it took Sam and Dean to locate the well concealed trap door, find the girl, cover her with their coats and discuss means of getting her to safety. There was nothing to do for the other person in that cold room, a teenage boy. Other bodies were almost certainly buried in the forests round abouts; their disappearance was what had ultimately led the brothers here. 

Sam covered the boy with a blanket from a cot upstairs. The child had been dead for over three days, also a runaway from the state of his clothes, safe easy prey for these vampires lurking at a two hour drive from Baltimore. 

Dean picked Cindy up. “We’ll get her out of here. And...well, those fanged bastards won’t hurt any more kids. Ever.”

“Right,” said Sam. Though it wasn’t only sadness that sank his shoulders. Castiel had the impression of a burden settling there. 

They carried Cindy back to the car as carefully as they could. 

“Mikki will be glad to have her back,” said Sam softly. Mikki, who’d been the one to put the Winchesters on the right track, was an older runaway who had been desperately searching for her friend after seeing her get pulled into a pickup truck three nights ago. 

The addendum ‘Mikki will have her back but only if Cindy survives and recovers’ went unsaid. A lot was going unsaid. Until Dean suddenly snapped, “Fucking vampires!”

Sam was oddly silent, looking at his brother out of the corner of his eye.

Dean said slowly and deliberately: “Fucking vampires. Benny’s gone, Lenore’s gone. Any vamp who wants a pass outta me now better have his Vegan Club Card ready to show me one hot second after I see them, or they’re getting the chop.”

“I hear you,” said Sam, some unsaid tension leaving him.

Cindy was still alive when they reached the car. Dean peeled the Impala away and down the forest road at speeds that would have been called reckless on a highway, while in the back seat Sam wrapped her in emergency blankets and pushed a saline IV from their well-stocked first aid kit.

 

\---

 

Cindy’s prognosis was not as rosy as the brothers would have liked when they left the hospital to avoid the inevitable questions from the local PD. But they phoned Mikki. After too many millenia, Castiel was well placed to know that humans died, especially teen runaways. If Cindy did not make it through the night, she would now pass in warmth, in comfort and with her best friend at her side. Many did not have that fortune when the end inevitably came. The brothers knew this - had to know this - yet there was heaviness in their step as they headed towards the Impala and the nearest bar and motel. Castiel, like most angels, had learned to be more philosophical about such things. 

 

\---

 

Dean’s head was moving minutely on the cheap motel pillow, eyes beneath his eyelids jumping left and right, tension running through his frame.

Castiel reached for a deep tissue bruise on Dean’s forearm where he’d caught a punch from a three hundred pound bearded vampire a head taller than he was (still within machete reach, though). 

Dean’s skin was rough beneath his fingers. Old scars ran here and there. A few faint lines marched parallel up and down the inside of his arm. Castiel could never quite understand why the Winchesters insisted on cutting themselves with silver knives to prove themselves human in the all-too-many instances when this was required, rather than keeping a silver pin around for such cases. 

Muscles coiled beneath Castiel’s fingertips, fighting the paralysis of sleep. Dean was in the grips of a nightmare. Again. Not surprisingly. The Winchesters had enough of those between them to fill the pits of Hell, even if one emptied out all the demons first. 

Castiel could feel the edges of this nightmare as he touched Dean. It tasted of claws and fangs and oily darkness, of adrenaline that would never stop pounding through the body. It sang with fear and with a kill-or-be-killed clarity that overrode everything. Purgatory. Castiel did not need to invade the dream, he knew what it was without looking. Dean was back there with the vampire, Benny. And with Castiel.

Naomi’s scorched earth approach to their knowledge of Heaven had been thorough, but she could only block off the memories, not extirpate them. Human memory was too complex for that. Castiel was still there, deep inside Dean’s mind. The paths that could reach Dean’s memories of him were severed from any logical connection and were solidly locked away. But of course dreams did not follow any tidy association of ideas. Castiel had known the brothers would dream about him, about angels and Heaven. That was no issue, the dreams of him would have no context to associate with waking memory, and would slip away or be shrugged off as a ‘weird dream of a guy in a trench coat’. 

As long as Dean didn’t-

“ _Cas-_ watch out!”

Castiel looked over at the other bed in alarm. 

Sam hadn’t in actuality gone to sleep yet. He turned his head on his pillow sharply when his brother mumbled that out loud.

A dream of angels would be forgotten or dismissed on awakening. Sam, however, was awake right now.

The look he gave Dean was faintly concerned...and entirely without recognition either. Of course. Awake, he’d have no context on which to hang that name. 

Castiel felt racked by two conflicting emotions. Relief that there was no danger to the integrity of the brothers’ memory wipe. And considerable personal distaste for same. 

Sam hoisted himself onto his elbows as Dean twitched again, jaw tightening. 

Castiel could let Sam wake Dean up. He could have- he probably should have- there was no real reason for him to- 

But he hadn’t been able to do more than give Cindy a slim shot at life, he hadn’t been able to help kill vampires - and this could be considered part of a guardian angel’s duties.

His arm swept over the hard muscles of Dean’s chest and shoulder to hold him, while feathers of Grace dropped over him, covering him.

Dean relaxed. Warmth spread through his frame and the dream changed. A nightmare of blood, teeth and claws...behind him now. Castiel did not _look_ , did not invade, but he could feel faint echoes as Dean’s mind seized on hints of comfort, safety and warmth, weaving them into the dream. A goal in sight. A light. A rescue made. Freedom gained through Dean’s own strength and grit - and this time a friend saved with him, a hand that stayed clasped in his own...

In the next bed, Sam yawned and rubbed his face, then swung his feet to the floor and padded off to the bathroom.

Castiel lifted his arm and Wing from Dean, noting the relaxation. Good. Rest would be better this way. He would not always do this. Nightmares had an important place in the human psyche. But not tonight, with Cindy and that unnamed boy and vampires and such weighing him down.

“Sleep well, Dean,” Castiel said, palm lingering over the place where the handprint he’d once left had resided. The t-shirt Dean had worn to bed had ridden up, the skin was bare there. It felt cool to the touch. Castiel had to resist the urge to pull up the blankets. Sam was awake after all and apt to react in a very predictable manner if catching sight of objects moving by themselves. 

Dean sighed in his sleep. It was a satisfied sound. 

A toilet flushed, but it did not wake him. 

Sam tiptoed back, looking tired. Castiel watched him, wondering how he could help. 

“Hm-....Cas...”

In the two AM silence of the darkened room, that, well, sigh had sounded remarkably loud and - well - it had not been a panicked nightmare scream. Castiel examined Dean’s face curiously. 

Sam had looked up with a snort just as he was sitting back on the bed; he misjudged, sat down with more force than intended and made the cheap springs squeal.

Dean was awake and tense in a second, right hand jerking under the pillow for his gun.

“Just me. Sorry.”

“Huh?” said Dean with a certain lack of comprehension.

“Didn’t mean to wake you.” Sam was half smiling in a strange kind of way. “Did I get you at a bad time?”

“Huh?” said Dean just as intelligently as the first time.

“Who’s Cas? Was that Cassie? Cassie from Missouri? Dreaming of her?”

“What? No.” Dean looked confused, staring around the motel room as if looking for something that really ought to be there. “Why’d you wake me up, you bastard?”

An expression of weariness on Sam’s face was quickly hidden under a mask. “Hey, you were the one keeping me from sleeping with your porn star impersonation.” 

“What?!” Dean was now fully awake, head shooting off the pillow.

“Ooooh Cassie! Oooh Cas! Then you mentioned, I don’t know, spanking?”

“ _What?!_ I- _What?!_ I did not! Shut up, you- you fucking huge ape!”

Sam burst into laughter. “The best bit was when you begged her to let you wear her panties-“

A pillow got hurled, some arguing ensued as to whose job it was to pick it up, Castiel went to perch on the desk near the window.

“Seriously, though,” Sam said after retrieving the pillow for his brother - and hurling it at him. “You were dreaming of her, I heard you clear as a bell.”

Dean rubbed his face, making a scratching sound when his callused fingers went over his stubble. “Maybe. Can’t remember. So what?”

“So...I know it’s been years and a couple of armageddons, but have you thought of getting in touch with her?”

“Not even once. She’s probably married with two kids and three Pulitzers by now, she needs me in her life like she needs a nuclear winter.”

“Well...might be someone else then.” 

“I see plenty of action.” 

“Exactly what I did _not_ mean. I meant someone who could make you stop and take a break. Like...”

Silence. A truck passed by in the street, making the desk’s lamp chime with the rattling.

“What, like Lisa and Ben? Yeah, because that worked out so fucking well.”

“Have you ever thought of giving her a call?”

Castiel remembered Lisa and Ben Braeden. And he remembered in a thunderous flinch why it would be a very bad idea for Dean to call them- unless he could then be persuaded that there was such a thing as a contagious case of targeted amnesia that did not have an origin in miracles.

“No. Go to sleep.” 

There was utter finality in those words.

“You know-“

“Shut up.”

Sam was silent and his gaze was turned inwards. “Dean...I...” 

Dean turned over on his side so his back was to his brother. 

“I learned my lesson and so have you. While we live, we hunt. While we hunt, we don’t have a life. Not with normal people. That’s just the way it is. It means we get to save Cindies and the other people those gangbanger vamps would have iced. That’s what keeps us going. That’s what makes it worth it.” 

“Yeah,” said Sam, turning on his pillow away from his brother as well so that Castiel could not fully catch the expression that had crossed his face. 

“Sucks that I have to be stuck with your Sasquatch ass,” Dean added.

“Bite me.”

Silence settled. But neither went to sleep for hours, staring out each on their own side, eyes reflecting light from neons outside the window. 

The light reflected in Castiel’s eyes too, though it reached him in a different color spectrum, a cold blue. He thought of John Winchester. He’d never met the man, and his sons had both surpassed and outgrown him in every possible way by now, yet still Castiel could see imprints of him on their lives. That rigidity. That inability to put down their weapons. To stop _being_ weapons, being soldiers in a war that would never end. But also their unwavering devotion to each other and their cause - though whether they had gotten that from John or to survive John, Castiel could not tell. 

From what he knew of him, Castiel could never see John as the Righteous Man - not like Dean at all. Though he’d have probably made a very good angel.


	4. Conjugal Visit

In the pocket of permeable normality which cradled their vessels, Naomi had linked her arm through his (what their higher Beings were doing would have required advanced multidimensional mathematics and particle physics to describe). 

Naomi being as naturally tactile as the void between the stars, Castiel did not know why she had insisted on the gesture. It was true that they were walking through the Heaven of an unsuccessful Victorian poetess. Men and ladies strolled along a sunny canal arm in arm, dressed in spats, summer dresses and parasols. It was possible Naomi had simply wanted to maintain the harmony of the scene despite already standing out in trench coat and power suit.

If there was a reason why he had to give her his report here rather than sitting in that uncomfortable office chair, Castiel was not aware of it. On reflection, this was better. The warmth of Heaven’s Light shone down on them, unknotting the small part of Castiel that had, despite everything, really missed it...This was nice. Except for the arm thing. And Naomi’s presence in general. And the requirement for these reports in the first place.

Naomi gestured towards a small tea shop near the bend of the canal. “Would you like some tea?”

“No.”

A moment of silence.

“We shall have some anyway,” declared Naomi. 

Castiel sighed inwardly.

He pulled out a chair for her, and then when she sat primly there, waiting, he poured her tea from the pot that had appeared before them and handed her the cup. 

“So the two reprobates are doing well despite the brain surgery.” Naomi stirred her cup with a teaspoon. She hadn’t actually put any sugar or milk in it. Naomi was not a soldier or a field agent, she had not spent more than a few scant hours on Earth or even in a regular person’s paradise, not for a number of centuries that could be measured in carbon dating. She missed a lot of obvious things. Though it occurred to Castiel that to know at least this little much about tea and cups and spoons, she must have come here before, and must have liked it enough to remember it.

“Yes, the Winchesters showed none of the possible side effects you indicated.”

“Good, good. I am sure you did not want to deal with bloody sputum or dizzy spells.”

“I’m sure they did not want to deal with those either.”

The spoon went _ting_ against the cup’s side. “And they show no signs of memory recovery, do they?”

“No. You were very thorough.” A cup had appeared before Castiel. He ignored it. Naomi politely ignored the rigid disapproval in his tone in much the same way. She seemed to want to be...conciliating was the closest word.

“They do have dreams of angels,” Castiel added. He’d been debating whether to mention this fact in his very first monthly report. He did not want to say anything, take a chance she might try to poke around some more despite her own cautions against such a move. But Castiel felt pretty sure she’d been watching closely this past month, and would note any signs of lying even by omission. 

“Dreams, yes. I did tell you that this was likely.”

“Indeed.”

“Nothing to worry about as long as they do not show signs of remembering anything on-towards when they wake up.”

“No signs, no.” No memory of the friend and the brother in arms and the angel who had driven one insane and the other close to despair.

Naomi sipped the tea and looked momentarily intrigued by the sensation. 

Two angels were hovering nearby. They’d been there for awhile. Naomi lifted her head and waved them forward. Castiel recognized Bartholomew, one of Naomi’s lackeys. The second angel Castiel did not know, someone from the lower orders. 

“Yes?” said Naomi.

Bartholomew looked at her, but his gaze and the Senses of his higher Being had flickered towards Castiel. “You asked me to report on my return.”

“So I did. Castiel, I’m sorry to cut this short. You may remain here for the day if you wish. I am sure you would love to spend time in Heaven. Try the cookies, I have heard they are delicious.” She gestured towards a plate of what Castiel pertinently knew were scones. 

“Thank you, Naomi.”

“See you next month for your report.”

Castiel knew, without having to test this, that he could stay _here_ all day - but not leave this paradise. He knew that guards were watching him. He knew he would not be allowed anywhere near Heaven’s grace and peace again until he was recalled for next month’s report. He knew angels in semi-exile such as himself would consider it a reward for a job well done to stay here for any length of time.

Castiel stayed one minute and ten seconds and left without taking a scone. He ended back in the bunker in the middle of a rather loud argument between Sam and Dean about Crowley and a demon named Abaddon, and what they should do about it. The fight was unpleasant, but an hour later the air had cleared and Castiel could sit at their table, hear them talk as they shared a meal and then watch Dean demolish a slice of pie.

He’d already forgotten Heaven. 

 

\---

 

Dean lifted another drawer out of the Impala’s trunk, blew away dust and lint before putting it down. He stopped before picking up the next one and reached inside it instead. 

“Hey, what’s this?”

Castiel and Sam both glanced over. Sam looked puzzled. Castiel looked concerned.

Dean unplugged the amphora and sniffed. He made a face.

“I don’t remember putting that in the car. What’s in it?” asked Sam, straightening up from the vacuum cleaner he’d been attempting to turn on (a fuse had blown in the wall plug, Castiel was wondering if Naomi would notice if he fixed it)

“Smells like that fancy-shmancy stuff you put on your salad when we’re anywhere near the coasts.”

“...Balsamic vinegar?” Sam reached his brother, took the old clay amphora from his hands and gave the contents a sniff. His nose wrinkled. “It’s not vinegar, but it smells strong for oil. Some kind of herb or additive in it...I won’t be putting this in my meals. Did we use this to anoint something sharp when dealing with a minor deity maybe? Is that myrrh? Smells faintly of myrrh - with olive oil? That’s an odd blend of religions. It’s- what are you going to do with it?” 

“Not letting it clutter up the trunk if we don’t know what it is,” said Dean, having grabbed the jar and striding towards the garbage with it.

A small laconic argument followed. Sam won inasmuch as the holy oil - whose purposes they were no longer equipped to understand - ended up in the ‘to be investigated’ portion of the library alongside other gems and junk they’d collected over the years. Dean didn’t object other than via the post-it note stuck to it reading, ‘Sam’s hippie salad dressing’. 

 

\---

 

The silence of the bunker was the heavy silence of libraries everywhere. The hum of ventilation and the tick of the kitchen clock gilded the quiet rather than broke it.

Dean flipped a page of the magazine he was studying, a hunter’s quarterly publication. Deer hunting, oddly enough; he seemed to be admiring the rifles. 

He suddenly looked up and around, craning his neck. 

Sam was asleep in his room. Only Castiel was there, sitting in the chair Sam had vacated an hour before.

Dean returned to his magazine, but his attention was shot. 

This had happened before, and with Sam as well. Castiel did not think he was to blame. Yet they did seem to turn in his general direction when this happened. Coincidence, possibly. But these men had survived dangers that had killed angels, demons and monsters alike, they had reflexes and instincts on par with the beasts they hunted. It was possible that a tiny part of them was picking up on his presence.

Castiel batted down the unreasoning wish that it was so.

Even if it was, they would get used to his silent presence sooner or later, and then they would no longer react to it at all.

Dean threw down the hunter’s magazine and picked up one of his other publications, the ones Castiel had collectively dubbed ‘the lady magazines’ since that is what took up all the pages. Dean flipped through to the center, examining it with a smile that looked oddly automatic and joyless. He sighed, threw it down, rubbed his neck and stood up, fluid and tough. 

“See you in the shower, miss October,” he muttered, though why he said that when he left the magazine on the table was yet one more mystery to Castiel. The angel went to check on Sam while Dean headed towards his room. With his preternatural hearing, the angel had caught a muffled groan all the way from the library. 

Sam was tense and sweating against his pillow. His head jerked regularly. His mouth shaped the words, ’not listening’, ‘you’re not real’, ‘go away I’m not listening’. 

Castiel did not invade the brothers’ dreams, and he certainly did not need to in this case. He _knew_ this. It was in large part his fault, and it was a burden Castiel had shouldered for Sam over two years ago. But there were still traces of the taint from the Cage in his memories. 

A flex of his Wings and feathers of Grace swept his friend, blowing away tension, and he hovered at the very edges of Sam’s dream-being without invading, letting an image of a road unfold in his mind. On cue, the Impala passed him by, heading towards a distant horizon, leading Sam away from anything frightening and with his brother, his safest strongest memory at the wheel.

In the bed, Sam relaxed and curled one hand up near his chin. Castiel smoothed away the sheet that had caught in his fingers.

“You really should avoid eating that much processed cheese just before bedtime, Sam,” Castiel informed him. “It does not agree with you.”

Sam sighed in his sleep. 

The pipes started groaning. Dean had stepped into his shower. 

Castiel unfurled his Wings. He had some of the library’s research papers he wanted to read-

”...Look...it’s Cas...”

He glanced back, surprised, but Sam had sunk deeper into sleep.

 

\---

 

Castiel had spent his many millions of years of existence fighting demonic incursions, ancient curses and a few dangerous monsters humans did not even have a name for and that were trying to claw their way into this peaceful dimension. It’d not left him that much time to observe humanity. He’d been a serious soldier; he’d spent his few moments of peace reading holy books and contemplating the Divine, not lewdly watching the monkeys reproduce like _some_ Seraph he could mention. 

He had nonetheless been aware that intercourse was a large part of the human experience. He’d have known that even if he hadn’t spent a few thousand years hearing Balthazar and his garrison friends bang on about it. 

He was getting something of a crash course on the matter while following the Winchesters around. This was part of human nature, and he did not mind it - as long as he was not meant to _participate_ of course. Ah yes. Angels did _not_ have nightmares, but they could have flashbacks to moments of stress such as being atomized during the apocalypse, taking on a burden of insanity from Sam’s shoulders, fighting for years in Purgatory, and getting dragged into a brothel and expected to copulate with a woman wearing a sweet smile and utter disdain for anything even remotely male radiating off her person like scorching heatwaves for those who had eyes to see. Not one of his fonder memories by a long shot (barring that clarion clear laugh of Dean’s afterwards.)

The Winchesters had diminished the number of their conquests, if Castiel was any judge. It seemed to be a bi-monthly thing now. Maybe there was a biological pattern at work, like the reproductive cycle of the female of the species. If he were a Builder of wonders or a Record Keeper like some of his brethren, he’d enjoy a chance for research from all this spare time and his enforced closeness with two human males in their prime. As a soldier and their guardian, it was merely a strain, since his duty would be split between two locations, and one or both of his charges was going to be getting close to someone Castiel did not know. 

The brothers had a system. It took Castiel awhile to figure that out, because the system was so intrinsic to the business that it was apparently never discussed. Ever. But they could communicate their successful attempts at acquiring a mating partner for the evening in some way or other, and whether they’d need the room or whether they could ‘score at home’ (by which they meant the woman’s home).

Sam walked a woman with Kohl-laden eyes and a sweet smile towards the door and gave his brother a look layered in significance that the angel sitting on the adjoining barstool could not fathom. Dean smirked and muttered, “Good job, Bambi,” into his fourth whiskey. He was drinking a lot. Even more than he used to. Castiel wondered if his continuous healing of Dean’s liver was not enabling him in this habit. 

These situations were always tricky. Which brother should he follow? Dean was ensconced at the bar and drinking steadily, he should be alright until the place emptied. Sam was out walking the streets, and Castiel had not had the time to properly look over his conquest. Sam was one of the nicest people Castiel knew (and that included everyone currently alive in the Heavenly Host) but his taste in women was not always stellar. At least she wasn’t one of the shapeshifters the brothers were attempting to track through the city, that much Sam himself had discreetly tested for with his ‘find the silver dollar’ magic trick. That still left a few possibilities. Castiel followed him.

The woman did not live far away. She was human, Castiel was able to determine before too many clothes were shed. He dallied right outside the bedroom window, watching the moon rise above the smog of Minneapolis, then he felt Dean’s presence in his mental map shift. Presumably going to bed in the hotel above the bar. It was an old building, five stories high with a fire escape that had to date back to the era before building codes and was probably illegal in all fifty states. The rowdy biker bar on the first floor meant the rooms were cheap and nobody looked too closely at the comings and goings of the patrons. 

Castiel checked Sam’s location one last time, then idly flapped back to Dean. He landed in the hallway - 

\- the door to the room shut with a slam. Alarmed, Castiel was through it a moment later, only to discover it had been the weight of two bodies that had shut it so firmly it had set the Do Not Disturb sign on the knob to swinging like a pendulum.

Apparently both brothers were going to ‘get lucky’ tonight- oh.

Castiel tipped his head to one side quizzically. He’d seen Dean with any number of women, but he’d never seen him with a man before. 

The two of them were pressed up against the door still, kissing breathlessly. Until Dean, pretty drunk, stumbled. They took a staggering step towards Sam’s bed. The man he was with got his balance back and put his hand up the front of Dean’s shirt and t-shirt again. This stranger was almost Dean’s height, dark haired, clean shaven, well built in a working-man way, dressed in dark denim and a thick jacket. Castiel remembered seeing him downstairs shooting pool earlier. Dean had been looking that way half the evening. Castiel had assumed the man was going to be a ‘piggy-bank’ - what the brothers euphemistically called the victims of their minor racketeering (which Castiel had long ago earmarked as ‘for a better cause, try not to think about it too much’). 

Castiel resignedly turned towards the door and ghosted through it. There was an unpleasant miasma out in the hallway- and this was from an angel who had spent way too many nights in way too many cheap motels so far. Castiel, nose wrinkling, wondered what gave it this sheen of flecked grime-

“Wait, wait.” Dean’s voice.

\- vomit, that was for sure, but something more. Hmm, industrial cleaner and...enzymes? Must have had blood stains here- 

“Look. Sorry, I don’t...Not up for it after all.”

Castiel’s attention centered back on the bedroom. With a minor effort of will he leaned halfway _through_ the wall and looked around.

Dean had broken away from the man and was rubbing the back of his neck.

“Not what you were saying a minute ago,” the man stated in a voice Castiel would call Naomi-cold. 

Dean was already making harsh cut-off gestures. “Yeah, my bad. Too drunk. Tell you what.” He turned towards the jacket he’d dropped on the floor. “Lemme go back down with you. I’ll buy the rounds and we’ll shoot pool until we can’t see straight-“

Two strides brought the man right behind Dean and he grabbed the wrist of Dean’s free hand. “Oh, you got the wrong guy-”

Castiel went from faintly disapproving to Avenging Angel in approximately 0.33 seconds (three neons on the bar’s BUDWEISER sign exploded into sparks and a car alarm started blaring outside-)

Still not as fast as Dean Winchester. Muscles coiled, whipping the hand away and spinning the man half around. Then Dean’s knuckles connected with the man’s kidneys. The thick jacket absorbed some of the impact- the follow-through knee propelled the would-be attacker into the door with a harsh slam.

“No, _you_ got the wrong guy,” said Dean, striding after the stumbling man, an ugly light in his eyes.

Drunk, he’s really drunk, thought Castiel in alarm. Dean’s punches had not been well adjusted but his moral brakes were off.

Castiel stepped between them, hand flat against Dean’s chest - a moment of purely intellectual discomfort as their spaces intersected, his hand floating through his friend’s pectoral. A spillover of thoughts despite trying not to listen-

_(So much rage! Sickening fury at something MISSING that he had wanted to find but hadn’t and then this MOTHERFUCKER thought- )_

Dean couldn’t feel the restraining hand, but a slight warmth brushed his skin, soothing, enough to make him pause, give him that second to step back from the anger and remember the better angels of his nature - or maybe just the control John had drilled into him. 

“Calm down,” Castiel said softly, stepping aside. “You are better than him.”

Dean huffed out a breath, particles of ethanol dancing around like heatwaves. He reached past the man and wrenched the door open.

The foolish creature threw a punch. Castiel did not bother doing anything. Neither did Dean, who merely tipped his head to one side, letting the fist brush by his cheekbone, then one hard shove tossed the irritating mortal out into the hallway. The man fetched up against the far wall. He straightened with a furious noise and an ugly look in his eyes. He was also inebriated, Castiel had to remind himself; humans did not make good decisions in that state.

He surged back towards Dean, apparently itching to remove that twisted gash of a smirk from Dean’s face-

An arm came out of nowhere, clotheslining the would-be attacker back into the far wall.

“Shit!“ An alarmed Dean took two steps and managed to catch Sam’s arm just as the silver-bladed knife came out. “Stop, Sam! He’s just an asshole.”

Sam’s eyes were frighteningly cold. The arm holding the knife only came slowly to a rest under Dean’s tug. 

“Let him run off.” Dean held his brother’s arm firm.

“You sure?” Sam’s eyes had still not left the intruder who was staring at the brothers like a rabbit gaping at the double headlights of an oncoming eighteen wheeler. 

“Yeah, yeah. Come on.”

The man turned tail and ran towards the ill lit stairs without a backward glance.

The two brothers stood in the corridor, taking stock. Dean waved at a shaggy bearded face that poked out from room 15 down the hall. “S’nothing, just a drunk, go back to bed.”

The bystander, a short man with a wrinkled Hell’s Angels Ride Again t-shirt stretched over a beer belly, grunted and closed his door.

“Who or what the hell was that?” Sam said, turning to Dean

“Guy’s lit. Got the wrong room.” 

“Why’d you open the door?” 

Dean’s eyes were still on the stairwell. “Thought it was room service bringing me champagne and Beyonce in a bunny costume.” 

“How drunk are you?”

”Not drunk enough.” He finally looked at his brother. “What are you doing here? Weren’t you going to spend all night in that hot mama’s bed?”

Sam slipped the knife back into its sheathe sown into his jacket. “That was the plan.”

“And?”

“Plans change. Especially when the husband I didn’t know about comes home a day early from a trip.”

Dean frowned. “You okay?” Then he rolled his eyes. “What am I saying. Is _he_ okay?”

Sam made a sour face. “Oh, he’s fine and quite into threesomes.”

Dean’s sudden cough sounded choked and the hand attempting to cover his blossoming grin was doing an average job at best. “Oh okay. So why are you here then?”

“Hm, let’s just say he was no Beyonce in a bunny costume either, and they were out of champagne. I decided to call it a night.” 

“Go to bed, fuckers!” the biker in room 15 yelled at the noise of laughter echoing down the hallway.

Down in the street, the man in dark denim trudged towards a car with regular glares back at the window above. He abruptly stopped and pulled out his phone, muttering ‘rope me into your sick fucking power play- I’ll show you-‘

The connect button produced a spark that somehow set his phone on fire.

‘ _Castiel!_ ’

‘I am doing my duty, Naomi. I am not having him call over some friends.’ 

‘Afraid your little pet will get roughed up?’

‘Afraid my friend and his brother will have to break out of jail again and run from a manslaughter charge.’

‘Are you even pretending this is part of your job description?’

‘I am preventing a possible crime and the shedding of blood.’

‘You are pushing boundaries, Castiel. Your job is to keep your two goons out of trouble and possibly preserve their life and limb, not their dignity or that joke they might call their virtue. That is not your purview, guardian.’

“Bite me.”

‘What was that?!’

‘Noted, Naomi.’

‘You are spending too much time with those primates.’

‘That _is_ my job description. As you may recall.’

‘...Thin ice, Castiel. Thin ice.’


	5. Echoes from the Prison Chapel

Another day, another hunt, another night in a cheap motel, this one decorated with a zebra stripe motif. Every time Castiel caught sight of a wall over his shoulder, it made him think of prison bars. Once he leveled a hard stare at it, it was just a zebra pattern again. It was not a good choice for a motel with an unmotivated cleaning crew who didn’t put enough care and attention on the white sections, but it was not sinister. Yet it made him tense for reasons he could not place. With some effort he stopped twitching around and looking over his shoulder, and focused on his charges. 

Dean was sleeping on his stomach. It spared the bruises on his back. Another ghost, another impact with a wall - Castiel was beginning to think that these lost souls were only trying to evict the intruders from their immediate space and not realizing there were still structures in the way. Or else they really were ‘all using the same playbook’, as Dean had grumpily put it. The latter theory opened a can of metaphysical worms...

Castiel’s hand ran slowly up and down Dean’s back. The hotel’s air conditioner was broken and the place was warm, both brothers had gone to sleep in nothing more than their boxers. Dean’s skin was faintly sheened with sweat. 

Grace suffused the flesh, soothed the inflammation and gave the healing process a boost. Castiel ran his fingers along the dip and curve of muscles sheathing Dean’s back, checking for nerve damage that could slow his friend’s punches down at a critical time in the next few days.

Dean slept on without even twitching.

Strange how insubstantial a touch could feel when it was not responded to, not even noticed. Did it even qualify as a touch in that case? The falling tree in the forest conundrum...

Castiel called his wandering attention to order and went back to his ongoing project, summarily entitled “Save Dean’s Liver Cells’. He parceled out the work and gave himself goals and killed time watching the chemical transformations tick over smoothly after his efforts, all to distract himself from wondering why Dean was drinking more and more as the days went on.

The Winchesters were only at the bunker for a single day before Dean picked up on ‘something interesting’ and they were off for a three day drive and a five day hunt on what seemed mighty slim leads. The leads petered out, but Dean picked up the track of a small gang of vetala working Highway 99 under the guise of young female hitchhikers. 

There were four of them, and it took time to find their hideout, an abandoned gas station near a closed exit off of the highway which was their predation ground. Sam went around the back while Dean burst in from the front. By the time Sam made his way through a cluttered storage room, Dean had done most of the work. Sam only got the one kill as a panicked monster fled from death and destruction at the front door by running out the back. Dean used this as an excuse to browbeat his brother into doing most of the body-burning work while he thumbed through his phone, looking at the local press websites of every town and village between here and Lebanon for more hunts. He appeared driven. Sam, for his part, said nothing. He looked...burdened. Tired. And not in a way his guardian angel could touch. 

The next night Sam opted not to stay up and drink, he went to their motel room to read and get an early night. Dean did not end up drinking alone, however.

The young man was staying at the same motel next to the bar - to be exact, the only motel, the small town having only one of each of anything, even churches. He was a chartered accountant, he traveled all over the county on requirement to keep books and do taxes for the businesses in these towns too small to have accounting firms.

Castiel realized where the evening might be headed when Dean actually let the man get most of that explanation out with just a muttered, “Huh, you meant that’s a real job?” before adding, “So, wanna get out of here?” Castiel gave the flustered man a deeply suspicious look and reached for his shoulder-

_(Oliver Kaas, uneasy with commitment after his parents’ acrimonious decade-long divorce, liked the rolling stone life he led, especially tonight, bloody hell he could not believe his luck-)_

Probably harmless, Castiel had to conclude, but found that he had a hard time trusting his own judgment on this. He did however, trust Dean’s. Dean seemed interested. Sexually, that is (even Castiel could tell that the quick overview Oliver had given him of his job had left Dean bored rigid). If he felt any concern, he did not show it. 

Castiel could still not shed a faint wariness; it walked him back to Oliver’s motel room alongside the pair, kept him standing near the TV while the two men began to embrace. 

Dean was instantly in charge of the pace and showed no hesitation. But there was something...off. His movements were sure, attentive enough on the surface but business-like underneath. He didn’t look at his partner for any length of time. Castiel remembered what he had accidentally ‘overheard’ from Dean in Minneapolis and had the feeling that here too, something was missing. A faint sadness joined his lingering tension. 

Castiel did not know what Dean was searching for, he would not look that deeply - and chances were, Dean did not know either. But the notion that this might not end well again made Castiel hang close.

Dean broke away to pull off his shirt and top, jeans already half unbuttoned. On the bed, Oliver’s jaw dropped and then he tried hard to look like he slept with men like Dean on a regular basis (Castiel found himself doubting it, but didn’t bother to go check.)

“Um, nice tat,” said Oliver, eyes centering there as if it was somewhat safer terrain. “Does it mean anything?”

“Yeah,” said Dean with an impersonal smile, “means this ass is nobody’s ride. But you didn’t need a warning label, you already knew that.”

“Well yes-” then Dean was back on the bed, taking off Oliver’s undershirt with an efficient move, interrupting any further questions. 

The two men coiled on the bed, jeans coming off as well. Dean let Oliver kiss him but then got his mouth on the younger man’s throat and collar bone, hands starting to wander. Oliver seemed more than happy to let him take charge and just hung on, eyes wide and expression still faintly startled at his good fortune. He ran fingers down Dean’s back, and Dean responded, dorsal muscles coiling in appreciation - Castiel looked away. 

This seemed to be going in the expected direction. The angel pushed away from the wall and turned towards the door. The light shining over the top of the curtain rod from the “Vacancy” sign right outside was striping Dean’s naked back like a black and gold tiger. He made his sensuous way down the other man’s body in stages- Castiel did not need to stay to watch this, especially since his vessel was starting to react a little. With his friend involved, what was simply a biological response to visual stimulation seemed to change into something unethical and - just plain wrong. Castiel elected to go stand outside the motel room door. This made no difference at all to a celestial Being, but knowing that it would make a difference to Dean helped a trifle. If only Sam weren’t in room 9, two doors down, Castiel could go further on his leash-

Thoughts of Sam focused his attention on his nearby friend without any conscious thought.

Sam’s book was open on the comforter, but he was not reading. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, hands clasped and eyes closed.

”- haven’t done this in a long while, what with..everything, but...Heavenly Father...I need guidance...”

Castiel jerked back as far as he could, horrified. This was a much greater invasion of privacy in his eyes than being the unintentional voyeur to the two having intercourse on the other side of a thin barrier of dead wood, drywall and vinyl siding. If only- but the tether kept him there. Even if his vessel was outside both those rooms, the senses of the greater Being that was Castiel made him all too aware of what was going on in the space that, but for a couple of mundane dimensions in the way, would have been somewhere within his own body. A multi-dimensional creature made of wavelengths, Divine Intent, EM fields woven onto gravitational pulls like bones and sweeping Wings of energy and Grace, could not in actual fact stick his fingers in his ears. At least not effectively. 

Oliver was starting to moan in appreciation as Dean did an efficient yet thorough job of getting him ready. Anything unpracticed in his movements went unnoticed, Dean’s hands were too used to control to show hesitation. 

”...I think we both need help,” whispered Sam, who would no more remember that nobody was listening than he would remember just how much angels had proved disappointing and unhelpful as a whole. “Dean and I - I feel like we’re treading water. Or maybe it’s just me. I can’t seem to talk to him about this...”

Dean wiped his hands on the sheets and turned back towards the other man, moving him into position - there’d been some unspoken communication, a ‘this way okay?’, a language of fingers and touches. Nothing verbal though.

Sam bowed his head, forehead pressing into the hands gripped together, elbows on his knees. “Is this all we have to look forward to? Doing this for the rest of our lives until something eats us? It didn’t feel this way before, when we were facing the Apocalypse. And I really have to believe us stopping that was part of Your plan...”

Dean made a small noise as he made his first slow thrust into the other man, a swallowed groan with frayed and ragged edges. It was the only sound he made. The hand splayed across his partner’s chest was careful, noting any possible flinch or sign of discomfort - though Dean didn’t look at him, kept his eyes closed. 

“And that’s just it. Is it only going to feel right when we’re facing the end of the world? How come that felt ten times easier than just living...? But I can’t stop, I need to help people - and I can’t let Dean down again.“

Cheap motel bed springs shivered and started to squeak. 

In the empty room between units 5 and 9, for those who could have seen into those wavelengths, a vessel was crouched against a wall with his fingers in his ears, reciting the first hundred verses of the book of Ezra in its original Aramaic.

It didn’t help. He hadn’t expected it to. 

 

\---

 

Dean got up and went to the bathroom to dispose of the prophylactic and wash his face. Castiel, following him again, caught sight of his own reflection in the bathroom mirror. Angels shouldn’t look so frazzled...

For a split second he thought Dean was staring right at him in the mirror. But then he realized his friend was looking through him to the bed beyond.

The relaxation and traces of pleasure threading through Dean’s body language were expected. The faint dissatisfaction and uncertainty on his expression were not. Castiel forgot his own harried appearance to focus on his friend. 

“That wasn’t what you thought it would be, I take it,” he said softly, meeting Dean’s green eyes in the reflection. 

Dean wiped his face dry with the towel and then stared at himself in the mirror as if he was seeing someone new and wasn’t sure he liked him all that much. Castiel was puzzled. This couldn’t be because his partner had been male. Could it? No. Dean was an open minded individual without a single homophobic bone in his body - which was good because people did regularly assume he and Sam were a couple. It had happened a few times with Dean and Castiel as well, when the two of them had worked together. Other human males would have reacted violently to a perceived slight on their masculinity. The hunter who’d punched angels, demons and Dick Roman in the face had very little to prove in that or any other department; he mostly laughed it off.

“Dean, it’s fine.” Castiel laid a hand on the naked shoulder, feeling the touch of skin beneath his palm. “You’ve known this about yourself on even a conscious level before. You know this doesn’t change anything about you. And...you may not have found what you were looking for tonight, but at least you are still searching.” 

His voice went unheard, his touch, the brush of his Grace, angel feathers resting on Dean’s back, went unfelt. At least consciously. But still Dean relaxed, blew out his breath and suddenly gave himself a wry half grin in the mirror. “Heh. Man of the world,” he muttered to himself so low that Oliver, a satisfied (and still slightly disbelieving) heap in the bed a few feet away, would not hear. “Nothing I won’t try once. Yeah.”

“That’s right.” The warmth of relief flooded through the Wing brushing Dean, unfurling past the wall. Dean’s smile grew, and in unit 3 next door a truck driver with no real roots turned in her sleep and smiled with a suddenly sweet dream she hadn’t had since she was a child. "My father has his failings, but making sex pleasurable and optional for humans rather than instinctual was one of his better ideas. It gives you degrees of interaction and intimacy rather than a binary choice. Your society is prone to labeling anything and everything. Often too rigidly. Don’t let that define you if you don’t want it to.” Dean was grinning in the mirror now as he folded the towel. “Did you know that early civilizations were quite-“

Dean turned away and sauntered back into the room. 

Castiel stayed frozen in place.

For a split second he’d forgotten-...

A tight sour feeling started somewhere near his vessel’s adam’s apple and ended up deep within his Being (two rooms over, Sam froze while brushing his teeth and gave the light that had flickered a suspicious glare).


	6. Looking at Freedom through the Bars

Castiel had been pleasantly surprised at the lack of demonic activity dogging the brothers. So far his tour of duty as guardian had been mostly non-eventful.

Both state of affairs did a one eighty together.

“Ah, there they are,” Dean said, chin jutting. Sam waved at the three men and one woman near the jeep in the clearing up ahead. And every one of Castiel’s alarms went off at a hundred paces.

“Demons!”

Cry of alarm predictably unheeded, Castiel threw back his Wings. A stiff breeze ripped through the sunny clearing, sending up dust and a plume of dandelion seeds in its wake. 

Both brothers stopped dead in their tracks. The ppm of sulfur in the air pulled towards them across that distance was small, barely up to human detection range, but the Winchesters were the best in the business and then some. If nothing else, the sudden wind on a clear day would have alarmed them. Or simply something in the pose of the four fellow hunters supposedly waiting for them. 

Dean and Sam threw themselves to one side. They hadn’t crossed into the clearing yet, where they would have been sitting ducks. They still had cover amongst the trees.

There was consternation up ahead amongst the demons who must have been counting on their ambush. The two smarter ones circled around the jeep, to get out of firing range and force the hunters to come to them. The two more suicidally inclined ones charged straight at the notorious Sam and Dean Winchester as if in a hurry to get their corrupted existences over with.

The brothers had responded to a call for help to hunt a large group of skinwalkers, and were armed with silver knifes and bullets. But a Winchester would feel naked without holy water, prerecorded exorcisms keyed to play in the Favorites list, and the demon killing blade. Castiel wasn’t too worried. 

Until a chill ran through his Being, the impingement of an evil that should no longer walk the earth.

“You two have the devil’s luck, I do say,” purred a voice.

Sam and Dean whirled around.

“Oh great, the I Love Lucy rerun from hell,” Dean muttered, putting his back to the tree. 

The scarlet-haired demon smiled, ruby lips parting. “I was hoping-“

Thunder rang out of a clear sky and storm winds blasted the clearing. Lighting cracked and struck a tree fifty feet off. 

Sam and Dean hit the ground and Castiel stepped between the demon and his charges, sword sliding to his palm.

The demon flinched, eyes flicking black as she twitched her head from side to side. It took a couple of tries, but then she caught sight of him through the dimensional veil that let her powerful aura through.

“You! I heard they had a pet-” then she had to duck the swing of a blade as their planes of existence intersected enough for Castiel to attack her.

Thunder rumbled overhead. The demon’s eyes flashed over the battlefield, tallying. Dean had hurled holy water at one of the possessed hunters, Sam had clicked Play on the exorcism track and was slashing with the demon knife. They did not know what was distracting the creature at their backs but they had reacted instantly, taking down the weak links quickly to even the odds.

And then of course there was the angel watching over them.

The Beast growled and leaped back - but this was a cold and calculating warrior, she left no easy opening. She was hoping to draw him away from the Winchesters, let her minions take them out while she kept their defender engaged.

Castiel flickered through the air, a light, a flash of pure power, a-

\- and got pulled up sharply by the damned tether.

The creature lingered for five seconds out of reach, eyes narrowing, puzzled. But when Castiel took one menacing step forward - in a creditable attempt at a bluff - she vanished. 

Castiel waited for the inevitable hullabaloo from on high.

It failed to materialize. Instead, there was a stuttering, ‘W-was that a Knight of _Hell?!_ ’

Castiel frowned while his Wings flexed, causing the demon who’d been about to knife Sam to have a sudden seizure. ‘Who is this?’

‘L-L-Lochiel, s-sir. I- Naomi asked me to watch this channel-‘

Thank absentee fathers for small blessings.

A wailing plume of smoke exited one hunter; the demon was of a normal strength for its kind, it couldn’t see the angel behind the veil of planes, but it had seen its leader flee and felt the touch of something dangerous on its corrupted Being. It wasn’t taking chances. Sam went to help Dean wrestle down the other one until the exorcism on a loop took effect. He went flying backwards three seconds later, but Dean held on grimly. The other two who’d initially stayed behind the jeep were running forward and they were armed with guns.

‘Could you go tell Naomi that Abaddon is back?’ Castiel asked tightly. Then added, ‘Please.’

‘Yessir!’

One of the demons swung up her rifle- and flinched, eyes flicking to black as a light that would not be visible on the material plane flashed. She staggered, disoriented. Sam surged up the hill, ignoring the blood pouring down his forehead, and got her in an armlock with the knife at her throat. “Leave!”

The demon couldn’t obey fast enough. The other one was smart enough to do basic math - take two Winchesters and one demon, which is most likely to get subtracted? - and fled along with her.

Sam put his hand to his head and sat down abruptly, legs crossed. Dean rubbed his stomach where a blow had impacted. His gun was drawn, his eyes wary.

“Are they okay?” Sam asked blearily. 

“Hm.” Dean checked a pulse. The woman at Sam’s feet was already starting to stir. “Hopefully.”

Dean looked up at the sky, then over at the smoking tree.

“Okay. Do you have any, and I mean _any_ , clue as to what just happened?”

”...Not really.” 

The brothers exchanged an uneasy look.

“Sudden storm, smell of sulfur, lightning...demon signs? Maybe Crowley?”

“Offensive,” Castiel said without rancor, “but an understandable mistake in the circumstances.”

Dean grunted. “If it was Crowley we’d be hip deep in smug sons of bitches with a Brit accent right about now. He’s never been shy before. Though...”

“Though we haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since the Gates,” Sam concluded. “Still, why would he help us from the shadows and not take credit?”

“Better question, why would he help us at all?”

“Because he hates Abaddon more than he hates us?” Sam suggested. “By a very slim margin?”

“Yeah, and she hates him, and I don’t think she scares easy. What sent her running? Hey, Farhad, you with us, man?”

The man who’d been exorcised first was stirring. Dean went to help him up.

‘Abaddon?’ Naomi was back on the air.

Castiel Looked up. ‘Yes.’

‘Oh dear. We thought Abaddon was dead.’

‘It is not,’ Castiel enunciated while thinking, Oh dear? _Oh dear?_ Naomi was not prone to overreaction, but surely that was too calm by half. Had she known about this?

‘Are you really sure? It wasn’t some minor demon parading around in a borrowed name-‘

‘Yes I am sure.’ Castiel had also wanted to believe that references to ‘Abaddon’ he’d overheard in the bunker were from an up-and-coming demon with delusions of grandeur. It was more rational than believing that a Knight of Hell had suddenly resurfaced out of nowhere. 

‘...I see you had to flex your Wings, did-‘

‘It was a Knight of Hell, Naomi.’

‘Yes, yes. And I’m sure your pets needed help with that, but you did not reveal your presence too drastically I hope.’

‘No,’ said Castiel and hoped this was the case. As if to contradict him, the tree that’d been set on fire lost a branch in a crackle of flames and sparks. 

Naomi tsked. 

A brisk wind blew, fanning the flames, but it was thick and wet and smelled of rain. Clouds started to gather above the woods. 

‘Hopefully that will explain the weather,’ Naomi grumbled. ‘I am depriving a region of farmland in the next county of much needed precipitation.’ She sounded as if she were laying every ear of parched corn at his feet. Castiel failed to care.

‘This plan of yours - it did not take account of such dangers. I cannot defend them from the shadows from such-‘

‘You can and you will!’ was the immediate snap. ‘That was the whole point. To keep them safe from the worst things without dragging them in deeper. I will see what we can do about Abaddon, but hopefully your demonstration will have sufficed for awhile.’

Castiel opened his mouth to argue...wondered briefly at Naomi’s phrasing. He was to ‘keep the Winchesters safe’? Hadn’t that been Naomi’s bottom priority? He wasn’t getting chewed out for his display of power anywhere near as much as he expected, either. 

”- like a nightmare,” the man Dean had called Farhad said as he staggered and fell back to his knees, intersecting Castiel’s space.

(Farhad Rehman, thirty seven, once a successful dentist and now a hunter dragging grief and loss behind him like chains)

He was grim faced and trying to get to his feet again despite Dean telling him to take it easy. “Sasha and I were- Sasha? You okay?”

“I’m going to be sick...” The woman’s face would normally be a ruddy weatherbeaten complexion. Now it was tinged with green. Castiel absently reached down and ran fingers through her hair-

(Sasha Baxter-Graham, forty one, getting tired of burying friends in this profession, her own losses far in the past but unable to simply stop) 

She sighed, rubbed her face, color flooding back, and muttered, “Yeah, I’m okay.” Her eyes stayed fixed straight ahead. Not staring at the man Dean had held down, the second exorcism. The one who’d been killed by the demon riding him. The fourth hunter was still out cold, but would probably survive, albeit with a lot of pain and a considerable amount of trauma. 

“We were hunting Skinwalkers out of Talahassee, a pack of them. They’d infected some humans and looked like they were planning some big trouble. We found them all dead. Strung up and killed slow. For sport, I guess. And just as we’re staring and wondering what the heck, these demons jump us out of nowhere. And then-” Farhad winced and tugged off a corner of his jacket to show his upper arm. 

“I’ll get the first aid kit,” Sam said, turning back to where they’d left the Impala.

Dean grimaced at the third degree burn. “That your tattoo?”

“Used to be.”

“Bastards.”

“I always thought I was the smart one, having this instead of a necklace like Sash over there-“

“They were after you,” Sasha said abruptly, looking at Dean. “That’s what _she_ said. The...the other one. The leader. _She_ said that they were going to trap you- she wanted to show off your skins. She said she’d use them as her war banner. At the front of her troops. She said...she said...” Sasha rubbed her face again. “She said a lot of stuff. I couldn’t hear it most of the time. She hates accountants.”

“She hates what?” asked Dean, looking startled.

“Accountants. Bean counters. Second car salesmen in cheap suits. She had a lot to say about that.”

“Oh. I think I know who’s she’s talking about. Looks like we all caught flak from some hell-born power struggle.”

“Here. Let’s get you guys patched up. And...” Sam’s other hand held a jerrican of gasoline and there was a bag of salt distending his pocket. Nobody looked at the corpse.

In the background, the flaming tree sputtered and sizzled under the light rain that had just started.

 

\---

 

“So what are we going to do about Abaddon?” Castiel asked two second after his monthly report was finished.

“Keep an eye on the creature. As much as we can.” Naomi nodded regally at a pair of Seraph who’d been talking near the edge of The Garden.

Castiel wished he could actually enjoy being here, the warm heart of light in Heaven, where their Father had last sat to talk to Joshua before leaving. This had been a favorite place for contemplation and prayer once, and now he could only focus on not shaking Naomi by the shoulders.

The two angels had quickly nodded at Naomi, Wings curving down in respect. Their Intent was on Castiel for as long as he and Naomi were visible.

“Don’t you think we could do something more proactive?”

That got him a cold look. “No.”

“But-“

“Our ranks are depleted, Castiel, as I do not need to remind you-”

Yet she always did.

“- and we have other battles to fight.”

Castiel stayed silent for awhile. Other than Naomi and that brief conversation with Lochiel, he’d not talked to another angel for the four months since his semi-exile began. Angel Radio was fairly quiet and strictly ‘business as usual’. It was hard to judge how things were going up here, but a faint sense of tension were making his feathers itch. He had a feeling internal strife - hopefully a non-lethal version - was distracting Naomi from hellspawn abominations. 

Naomi walked with him for thirty more minutes, grilling him on the Winchesters’ state of mind and for all the details they had let drop about Abaddon, Crowley and signs of a power struggle in Hell. It wasn’t much. Castiel wondered about the missing pages in Dean’s journal and almost asked, but decided against it. 

Naomi left him with permission to stay in the Garden for the day. She’d barely disappeared when Castiel flew back to the bunker. He’d delayed his recall by three days in order to leave his charges in a safe place.

 

\---

 

Castiel would have preferred if the Winchesters stayed hidden in the bunker for awhile, only leaving to investigate signs of Abaddon. 

Of course that did not happen. They seemed unable to stop, to focus on only one problem, not while there were people out there getting harmed by the things in the dark.

Castiel had long ago realized he could not stop them from doing this - even back when he could argue with them, even vehemently. Was this unselfish martyrdom on their part? Some validation of their life choices, mistakes and sins? Or the instinct that kept greyhounds chasing that little mechanized piece of fur around the track until they burned out? Castiel couldn’t decide, even now that he was their silent shadow watching them constantly. 

Sam did occasionally try to apply the brakes, to no avail. Dean seemed to be doing everything three times as much these days: hunting, drinking, having sex. With women for the most part. His brother accused him of having an early mid-life crisis. 

On three more occasions - when Sam was not around or likely to figure it out - it was men who replaced the women. Castiel did not give them the angelic third degree that Oliver had gotten. He trusted Dean to know what he was doing, and get himself into and out of as much trouble as he could handle, same as always.

...There was still something missing, whether it was with men or with women. And Castiel was starting to intuit that it wasn’t only missing from sex; that was just where it was most obvious. He had no basis for this conclusion, but it would explain the drinking, the excessive hunting and the fact that Dean, normally the more family conscious of the two brothers, hadn’t grasped just how much Sam was feeling lost these days.

Castiel watched - what else was he going to do? - as a woman in a bar tried to pick up the hunter with innuendo even an angel would understand in under five seconds. Dean looked at the eager, willing woman admiring him - too eager, too willing, too admiring. He turned her down. 

\- Castiel remembered holding this man against his Being as they tore out of hell, a soul ragged and bleeding and _hating_ itself...Dean needed this acknowledged. He needed to be looked at for what he really was. Even though he spent all his days and nights pretending to be every kind of official in the civil service, every kind of man he was not.

Castiel watched as Dean plied a willing secretary for information at the local garage. He watched as Dean lead an enthusiastic girl he’d picked up at the bar towards the bed...still something missing. Dean needed...resistance. A small part of him needed a fight, it had to be fought for to be worth it. 

\- Dean in a fight was a thing of wonder, an experience Castiel could only equate to fighting alongside his siblings against the first rise of Lucifer eons ago. Back when there were more angels, back when it was a holy war, back when feeling joy at destroying darkness need neither excuse nor nuance.

Castiel watched as the third man Dean met swung him up against the wall and pressed him there. Castiel was a breath away immediately - though the man was more at risk of getting punched by a startled hunter. Then Dean captured the initiative again. The other man caved in with a shrug - 

\- but Castiel wondered...had that been resistance? Or just an invitation for a bit of-...of play fighting, perhaps. Dean wasn’t a control freak, he didn’t want to submit or dominate either, he wanted a push and pull, he wanted it to be like a struggle that wasn’t one, like arguing with angels, like the warp and weave of his brutal life.

It was still one of the better encounters Dean had in awhile. He left with a smile on his face. Castiel felt a brief gratitude towards the man left behind, and the hope that this stranger too would find that elusive something he was also searching for; something that was not, in final, Dean.

Sam got lucky in Tulsa - and with a perfectly normal unmarried human woman, Castiel felt required to verify. Dean took one look at the local bar scene and went back to their room. Got out a beer, threw himself on his bed with a grunt and ordered up something violent and silly on pay per view. He looked satisfied with the way he was planning out his evening. He stretched, then tsked at the pull of the broken skin on his knuckles (a ghost had possessed a human - it had gotten ‘messy’)

Castiel, sitting on Sam’s unused bed and facing the TV, turned his head. “Do you remember when you punched me? Just before I joined your side?”

Dean flicked his hand as if he could get rid of the pain that way, made a fist a few times.

“You cracked two of your metacarpals back then,” Castiel said with a chuckle. “You didn’t even notice. Or if you did, it only made you angrier.”

Dean yawned and had a drink of beer. They both settled down to watch the movie for an hour until Castiel went to check on Sam again. 

A waitress in Sedona had cigarette burns, reasonably fresh, on the underside of her arm. Dean pretended not to notice, but that coupling was noticeably more gentle than usual, letting her make all the moves. Dean was considerate with his lovers, whatever seemed to be missing on his side, and he could give as well as take. Though it really wasn’t his style, in final. 

...Because that steel core showed through even when he was offering comfort. Castiel remembered staggering beneath Dean’s slap on the shoulder after a particularly bad battle in Purgatory. But then the fingers had squeezed and the second pat was more gentle.

Castiel watched a woman at the county clerk’s office simper and bat her eyelashes and play coy while Dean got supposedly restricted case files out of her. The Winchester charm was as deadly as their knife fighting technique. Though if she wanted to really score points with Dean, Castiel thought distantly, she’d be better off being open and blunt. Dean always said he liked straightforward talk to a lot of ‘spinning’ (was it ‘spinning’? It had something to do with rotation-...)

\- Though of course one could be too blunt. Castiel found himself smiling faintly as he remembered some perfectly straightforward remarks or legitimate questions of his that had sent both brothers into agonies of embarrassment or throws of laughter. Followed by ten fruitless minutes of going over a human custom his friends seemed to think was perfectly clear, and was in fact as clear as the bottom of the river Nile...

He missed those moments. More and more. Even though the Winchesters and the rest of the noisy world spun around him, Castiel felt himself encased in a sarcophagus of silence.

\---

 

In Bagdad, Arizona, Dean waded into a group of three djiin to save an elderly journalist who was about to become their prey. While Sam hustled the would-be victim to safety, Dean coldly put down the monsters, but got poisoned in the process. Fortunately the Winchesters had the antivenom handy. 

“Do you need a bucket?” Sam asked, leaning over his sweating, white-faced brother on the bed. Turned out that using the antivenom several times could lead to cumulative overreaction by the immune system. Dean wasn’t hallucinating and at death’s door, but he probably wished he was at this point.

Dean gave his brother an anatomically impossible suggestion of what to do with a bucket (unless the bucket was very small). 

“Hey, I don’t want to have to sleep all night with your puke on the floor.”

“Get lost.”

Once Sam was asleep and Dean had drifted off into something more approaching unconsciousness, Castiel sat down at the side of Dean’s bed. Then, obeying some impulse he could not pin down, he swung up his legs until he was resting on his side facing Dean. He cupped the side of Dean’s face, palm over the jugular, fingers and thumb resting over Dean’s chin, the stubble on his cheek, the downturned curve of the mouth. A touch of Grace started neutralizing the remain of toxins in Dean’s bloodstream. 

He stayed like that most of the night, even when the djiin’s poison was removed.

He did not think Dean would like to know Castiel was this close and ‘watching him creepily’ while he slept. 

Maybe that was what made him linger. The unreasonable assumption that if he stayed like this long enough, Dean would finally notice him and get mad and yell at him. 

They were heading towards summer days, yet the nights seem to be getting illogically longer. Dark hours stretched before him, thousands of them empty and silent, with morning bringing no change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ironically enough, next chapter is where everything suddenly changes. Cheer up, Cas.


	7. A Rock Hammer and Rita Hayworth

The mightiest wall can crumble. It often starts with the smallest of cracks. 

After a fruitless day at the bunker researching the Knights of Hell, following leads and arguing about the best approach to a war in the Pit that was almost certainly going to rope them in, Sam stomped off to bed. Just as he left, he shot over his shoulder: “Now I wish I hadn’t let you convince me. That we’d just locked all these assholes up and thrown away the key. Whatever the cost.”

Dean - tired, angry, frustrated and functioning on too little sleep and too much alcohol - surged to his feet with an angry and hurt look on his face, but his brother had already left.

“I think you were right, Dean,” said Castiel. The brothers hardly ever talked about the Gates of Hell episode, but Castiel had picked up some information by inference. “If closing these Gates would have killed or permanently debilitated Sam...At one time I would have approved of such a sacrifice. But not anymore.” 

He’d been locked in with the brothers for over four months by now. Better than Lifer’s Row? Infinitely. But it was doing strange things to his perceptions. Angels were not solitary creatures, they were meant to be constantly part of the Host, sharing thoughts with their brothers, following rules and orders. When he’d Fallen, Castiel had replaced rules and orders with free will and a sense of right and wrong, while Sam and Dean had become his brothers. They were such a huge part of his life - even though he’d only known them for a mere fraction of it. Losing either of them would be devastating, a personal apocalypse wiping out half his planet in one fell swoop. And Castiel had come across enough grieving families ripped apart by Purgatory’s kindred to know that in this, they were all similar. Every human life was precious, however short and brutal it appeared from on high; they all had family. 

“You are both too important to this world, Dean. You’ve ended up in the crux of every extinction level event to date, at any rate. And you are both too important to me. Even if I’m locked out. Even if I can’t touch you. Or tell you that you did the right thing. Or argue with Sam about it.” Castiel tipped his head back and leaned it against the wall. “Or threaten to lock you both in a doorless room together until you agree to stop hurting each other over this issue.”

Talking to the brothers - and thus himself - had become a habit he’d picked up.

Nobody ever answered. Even Lochiel and Naomi seemed almost entirely absent these days. Castiel had instinctively caught a bullet plunging towards Dean’s back just last week in Pensacola and nobody had yelled at him. That absence of conversation he did not mind. And it had allowed him to stop that necromancer from shooting his friend in the back and thus ruining Dean’s much awaited zombie hunt.

Dean had assumed the man had missed and then been his usual efficient self. Took down most of the undead, the necromancer and the necromancer’s dog (a disturbing undead dalmatian). Then he’d helped Sam up from the floor before burning all the bodies. It’d seem to rejuvenate Dean in some way. Not so his brother. Sam was increasingly grim after every battle, after every search for demon signs. Castiel now realized that Sam’s outburst had been coming for days now.

After Sam’s parting shot, Dean drank too much, went to bed and had a nightmare.

Castiel was doing his own research by then. He’d become adept at artfully dog-earing pages on books placed just right to catch Sam’s attention. But he was not getting very far with the Abaddon problem either. 

At first he ignored the sounds of distress, faint as they were. Both brothers had more bad nights than good ones as a whole. It was upsetting to their guardian, but he took it with resignation. Some things could not be avoided. Scars, trauma and nightmares were the cost of having a planet that was still currently spinning.

Then Castiel thought he heard his name. And a solid thump. Dean had hit something. Probably the headboard. Dean. If he couldn’t get his anger out on a viable target, he’d fight a wall. 

Castiel flew over, hoping the faint stir of his arrival would jolt his friend out of it.

It didn’t. One of Dean’s hands was caught in the covers, the other fisted above his head, face tight, body one tense ugly line. A bad one.

“Cas! Help!”

It was a grit-teethed groan. Dean jerked against the snare of sheets.

Castiel moved through Ether and stepped into Sam’s room.

Sam was fast asleep, somewhat peacefully. His room was too far for his brother’s struggles to wake him unless Dean started shouting in his sleep. He would not be coming over to investigate the noises and help Dean wake up.

Castiel found himself back in Dean’s room without any particular forethought.

Dean was still fighting. Through clenched teeth, he muttered something ragged about Gates.

Castiel should have left his friend to fight it alone.

Or he should have cheated just a bit and knocked over something in the room, woken Dean up.

Or he should have covered Dean with his Wings and hoped that the faint stirs of comfort and warmth would divert the nightmare. 

He should have done one of the above but he didn’t. He put his hand on Dean’s forehead - slick with sweat, threaded with the rushed beat of a pulse - and despite his long-held intention to not do so, he dropped into Dean’s mind.

The pure angelic motive of the move was to see if he could get a lead on these Trials that had been undertaken to close the Gates, figure out maybe where Sam’s still-lingering damage was coming from and fix it.

The less noble reason was that deep in that stubborn alcohol-ridden skull there was a Dean who knew a Castiel, who was calling out for his help, and Castiel wanted to be that angel, the one Dean knew and counted on, just...just for a short time. Just this once.

He was in the nightmare before he could really over-analyze his own motivations too much.

The dream was, of course, a dream. Dean was there, holding Sam like the Piéta, and Sam was dying. Light was crawling through his veins, pulsing in time with a stuttering heartbeat, eating him alive. Dean was screaming but making no noise. A church burned brightly in the background like a house in Kansas once had, and Castiel was there in the dream too, struggling to reach them, but a sneering Naomi with yellow eyes was holding him back effortlessly.

The dream was like a membrane. Over it gathered clutter from Dean’s subconscious. Beneath it lay the memory that was aching and pulsing, creating the stress that had manufactured this nightmare. 

Castiel, with a flick of his Grace, cleared out the clutter, cut away some of the layers, like he had years ago when reaching out to Dean through his dreams. He wasn’t trying to get a message through this time - that would only be confusing - but it would help tone down the nightmare. 

The fire disappeared, so did the yellow eyes, the sense of crushing responsibility and some of the anger. 

Sam was still dying.

And Castiel and Naomi were still there.

Castiel stared (while the dream continued to roil around in the background).

This didn’t make sense. Wasn’t this a dream about the Gates? It had to be, Sam was still dying over there, consumed by light like poison.

But what were Castiel and Naomi doing there? They hadn’t been present.

Naomi had her arm around Castiel’s chest and shoulder, physically holding him back. She looked both anxious and angry. One of the locks of her hair had fallen from its orderly do. She was shouting in silence (the whole nightmare was silent, only Sam’s stuttering drowning last breaths filled the quiet). The details were so crisp...These were not figments of a dream plucked from somewhere else, they were a part of this nightmare in particular.

Something stirred deep inside Castiel. An insidious feeling of _wrong_. It felt eerily familiar, as if it had been growing at the back of his mind for months now.

There was something here- but to find out, he would have to cross a line. Possibly a dangerous one. He looked around. Then up, as if he could see the inside of Dean’s skull like the Sistine Chapel overhead. 

“Dean...I don’t know what to do. You hate it when I poke around. And there could be some risk if I-“

In the silence of a dying man’s final gasps, Dean’s dream self was screaming. CAS! HELP ME!

Castiel broke through the membrane. No longer in dream, now in the core memory that had created it. A place he had been warned by Naomi - as well as by Dean’s repeated threats of reprisals against angels that went snooping - to stay clear of.

The scene abruptly changed. He was now looking through Dean’s eyes, a silent invisible passenger in his head. He felt streams of thought flow by like white water rapids, panic biting at the edge of Dean’s control as Sammy in his arms writhed and coughed up blood. 

Castiel quickly took stock. Naomi’s work had parceled off memories so they were no longer continuous and accessible at a conscious level. Castiel could not walk backwards through this memory to find out what had led his friends to this place - and so could still collect no real probing information on the Gates or the Trials, to his bitter disappointment. He knew he would not defeat Naomi’s lockdown, not without risking Dean’s mental health. He had to hope that this fraction of memory he’d accidentally found through a dream contained something useful at least. Something to justify the risk he’d taken stepping into one of the soldered off sections. 

In the memory, Dean was holding onto his brother, who had fallen near the Impala. Dean’s worry and sick heartache and years of love for his little brother ( _always take care of Sammy_ ) made Castiel tense with a sympathetic panic. The light was not eating Sam alive, that had been the dream, an echo of what Dean must have seen before they got to this point in time. But Sam looked dreadfully ill. And Dean was still crying out for the one person he always counted on. 

“Cas! Castiel! If you can hear me- help me! Help Sam!”

A flap-

Cas was there.

The tidal wave of relief made the real Castiel, riding shotgun in Dean’s head, almost keel over. 

“Dean? Sam!”

Castiel - ’ Cas’, the one from the memory - knelt down quickly on Sam’s other side, facing Dean.

But that couldn’t be real - could it?! How could this be a memory of himself if he couldn’t remember it?

Cas touched Sam’s forehead. Gasped. “What-“

“The Gates- closing them was going to kill him! I made him release it, but he’s still- can you help him?” Please say you can help him- please Cas-

The memory of himself reached both hands towards Sam’s head, and a faint light shone from his fingers. 

Dean felt a surge of relief - though Castiel noted that ‘Cas’ had not actually answered Deans’ question...

 _He_...had healed Sam? But...

Dean dragged in a shuddering breath, held onto hope and his brother with both hands. It eased the bite of panic-

\- and other feelings came flooding in, layers upon layers of them. 

Cas. See, it’s going to be okay, Sammy, Cas is here. He’ll help you.

_(- the nerdy angel accountant with puzzled eyes -_  
_\- terrifying warrior of god with wings of darkness and lightning and immeasurable strength-_  
_\- brother in battle abandoned by a father just like me, I can help I have to help-)_

Castiel gasped and tried to remove himself from the emotions- and only sank deeper as if in quicksand. 

_(- pureheart even fallen into doubt or wrong, I’ll always trust him even when given three - dozens - millions of reasons not to -_  
_\- twisted and tangled, friend/brother deeper/darker maelstrom anger and wanting/not wanting that much feeling because someone like that never stays never chooses me-)_

With a stuttering curl of Grace that made his Wings crash out through multiple planes, Castiel managed to separate himself from the tsunami of feelings and memories. He wasn’t there for that. And he knew what Dean felt for him, the bond built of hell rescues, battles and brotherhood-

...That had been the start, true, but he hadn’t realized how much it had grown since. After so many years it was to be expected perhaps, but it was so- so complex, so deep, so twisted inside, echoes of anger and hurt and love and longing, cut into by Dean’s self-esteem issues and other feelings. Which Castiel did not have time to analyze, and would be a violation of privacy if he did. Not the reason the angel was here in the first place.

With the discipline of the soldier, he cut himself off from as many of Dean’s emotions as he could, only riding the crest as he focused.

This was Dean’s memory, colored by his thoughts and perceptions. All he could see/remember was Castiel on his knees, hands on Sam’s face, the light shining, and Sammy’s grasping breath easing, some color coming back to his face. Bleed-off of relief and gratitude ripped at the edges of Castiel’s concentration. He ignored them.

Because he might be seeing the scene through Dean’s eyes, but Castiel could analyze it on his own. He knew how much damage had been done to Sam just from the remnants behind the considerable healing job which had been done to him - which, against all sense and evidence, _Castiel_ had done to him. Sam was essentially liquefying on the inside. Cas could barely touch the root cause of the problem, and was putting his all into stemming the tide of damage that were the symptoms. 

The memory of himself started to glow faintly. Cas’s eyes turned a fiery blue. Lighting cracked overhead, shadows flickered where they shouldn’t be any, the door to the church crashed closed and then fell off its hinges. 

Dean watched, worried. But since he couldn’t see into the higher dimensions - couldn’t see Grace pouring from Cas into Sam like blood - he felt hope. Awe. Even a dark thrill.

_( - so much power, the one angel of the lord who’s on MY side! Cas is STRONG! ‘Can’t keep the guy down’ strong, ‘alway claws his way back from the dead to help us’ strong. That’s my Cas - can’t fail!)_

Castiel looked at himself through Dean’s eyes and realized that Dean’s ‘Cas’ was about to die. And not the ‘come back from the dead’ kind of dying either, not this time. 

Well. Probably not. 

Unless...was that what had happened? Had he died and somehow came back _again_ \- wait, no, what about Purgatory? He’d only just gotten back from Purgatory and Naomi-

“Castiel! Stop!” Naomi screamed.

She was there, trying to pull him away from Sam.

The stream of invectives pouring from Dean’s mouth would have made a demon cringe. The anger had as many spikes as a porcupine. Worry for his brother, for Cas, rage at the interference, the simple anger he always felt when he saw another angel (self-righteous kill-bots! Not a single spine or soul amongst the lot!). And some strange alpha-male ripple of fury at the way Naomi was holding onto Cas, her arms across his chest and around his shoulders as she tried to pull him away.

“Naomi. Leave,” said Castiel (the memory) through gritted teeth. “You owe me this.”

“But- but you’re going to-“

“Leave!” 

Naomi recovered some of the poise that Castiel had never seen her without before. She let go of him, made a noise of fury, then reached out to Sam and touched his forehead.

The light doubled. Trebled. 

Sam gasped and came awake with a retching cough.

Naomi looked disgusted at the bloodied spittle that landed on her cuff, but to her credit, she did not let go.

“We can’t fix this, Castiel, but we can- here- apply the force there. Like that, I will do the same. Now let it go. He’ll be fine. Somewhat.”

“Who-“ Sam’s voice was crackling and liquid, he stared at her wild-eyed, trying to get out of Dean’s hold. “Cas? Who is-“

“She helped,” said Cas, letting go. 

Dean’s vision was on his brother, feelings/memory bowled over with relief and joy - even gratitude towards Naomi and all angels for once, hey, they finally came through, only took two apocalypses- 

In Dean’s peripheral vision, Cas staggered to his feet. Dean, overjoyed at seeing his brother alive, did not quite note how bad that stagger was. The kind that suddenly required two guards at Castiel’s elbow to hold him up. And four guards behind those two in case Castiel needed more support, presumably. 

Dean did notice that. “Hey! What the hell?! Let him go, assmonkeys!” 

Naomi sighed as she straightened up. She glanced down at her hands and they were clean of blood. “Do not concern yourself, Dean Winchester. We did help, did we not?”

“I said let him go!” Dean started to get to his feet- stayed rooted by his brother’s pained gasp.

“You should get Samuel Winchester to a hospice,” said Naomi didactically. “We have saved his life but his body is still distressed.“

“What are you doing with Cas, bitch?!”

Naomi’s tight smile clearly stated, I am under no obligation to answer you but I will prove myself the better Being. “There are still some issues we need to deal with. Castiel will accompany us to Heaven, where he-“

“Yeah, and then you’ll fuck with his mind again?!”

...fuck...with...again?

Naomi gave her ‘none of your business’ smile an extra little twist. “I am going to help him. We do owe him that much. And I suppose we owe you too, Dean Winchester, which is why we aided your brother.”

Dean flinched, punched in the gut by the implied tit for tat. 

_Again? What did he mean by-_

“Dean, it’s fine”, said Cas quickly in the background. He made a reassuring gesture, standing there non-aggressively. Even Dean now noticed that he was only able to do so because one of the guards was propping him up 

_(but he’s strong, back on his feet in no time, kick all their feathered tails and be back-)_

The word ran round and round Castiel’s head like a rat. Again? Again?! _Again?!_

“You said if he helped you with the mess upstairs, that all would be forgiven,” Dean ground out, ignoring Cas’s interjection, ignoring Naomi’s insinuations, ignoring everything to get down to what mattered, what was _right_. “He helped you save Heaven, right? He stopped that guy? Otherwise you wouldn’t be here. So you leave him the fuck alone.”

“It’s not that simple-“

Dean let go of Sam and reached for the angel blade in his brother’s jacket.

“Dean-“ said Cas sharply.

“He will be fine!” Naomi snapped, patience with the primates clearly running out. “But there is still quite a mess to fix. He will be pardoned, I assure you. I will personally help him. You have my word on it, Dean Winchester, and it is not lightly given. He will be back, I assure you, watching over you. At which point you’ll have him at your beck and call for your slightest needs again.” 

This produced a flinch and a volcano of anger. “Hey, you fucking halo! We - we don’t- Cas helps us because he wants to!“

“And I’m sure you’ve never abused that,” Naomi said, because even Castiel (present one) had to admit that she was, to borrow an idiom currently thundering through the mind/memory he shared, a bitch the size of Baltimore and its suburbs. What had Dean meant, fuck with his mind _again?!_

“Now-“ said Naomi, and was interrupted by one of her guards dragging someone from the church. 

“Ah. Naomi. Should have guessed from the strident screeches,” came a well known voice that Castiel had in no way expected.

Crowley?! What was _he_ doing here?

Also, why was he chained? And looking almost as bad as Sam?

Dean’s feelings were too much of a morass of anger to fully mine for information. Very conflicting feelings were ripping him apart.

_(Crowley’s a complete and utter douche but me, Sam and Cas are the ONLY ONES who’ve earned the fucking right to stab the little bugger - you and yours don’t qualify, sister! Leave him alone!)_

“He was hiding in the church,” said the guard.

”I wasn’t hiding, I was tied to a chair,” Crowley pointed out with some acerbity. “Get it right. Naomi, I know this probably seems like a golden opportunity to you -“

Naomi made a gesture.

And then it was only Dean, kneeling next to his Baby with his shivering brother in his arms and the rain starting to fall. 

“What- where- where’d they take Cas?!” Sam gasped, trying to sit up and not being very successful at it, adding something else to the burden of his brother’s worries.

“...Back upstairs with the rest of the holy brigade.”

_(Shit, Cas, be okay be okay be okay)_

“Is he going to be okay?!” Sam asked, and then coughed blood.

“Yeah, he’ll be fine,” Dean answered firmly. “She did promise after all, and those tight-assed ones take pride in keeping their word. Didn’t like the way she said ‘pardoned’. Sounds officious. Bet he’s going to be sitting on his hands for awhile while they read him the riot act in three different dead languages. But he pulled their nuts out of the fire, so they can’t come down on him too hard. Don’t worry, Sammy. He’s Cas. He’ll be fine, and if not- no, he’ll be fine. I’m more worried about you. Think you can stand?”

“Yes- Aah! Uh...no...”

“Then I’ll just have to carry your gigantic-“

The memory cut abruptly. Dean was frozen in the act of pulling Sam up. The rain hung motionless in the air. They had hit the end of the memory, the rest was locked under another barrier.

Castiel, behind Dean’s eyes, stared at the rain nailed to the sky.

Then he was kneeling next to Dean’s bed. His hands had fallen into his lap. His Being was huddled like a spring tightening and his Wings were starting to shake, motes of dust and particles dancing in resonant agitation.

AGAIN?!

In the bed, Dean snored. The memory playing out had played out the nightmare as well. He was now in something approaching peace.

The same could not be said for his guardian angel. 

 

\---

 

Six hours later, Dean got up, went to the adjoining bathroom to urinate, splashed water on his face and indifferently pulled on clothes seemingly at random from a set of jeans, tees and shirts.

Castiel, still kneeling on the floor, finally stirred. Got to his feet. Looked at the surrounding walls with new eyes. He had more questions than answers. But, to use an appropriately biblical phrase, the scales had fallen. 

He was in jail. He _was_ rotting on Lifer’s row. But the routine, the rules and the small labors they had provided for him had distracted him. 

He could see the bars now. He was locked in a cell twenty feet by twenty, barred from speaking to anyone in Heaven outside of his jailer. No, worse than prison. At least the lifers could talk to each other through their cell doors. No, Castiel was in long-term solitary confinement - a punishment that even the humans were beginning to judge barbaric. 

And he had helped put Sam and Dean in the cell next door.

Isolated from each other. Unable to communicate to hatch an escape plan. Guards monitoring them closely (though not closely enough- what was going on up there that Naomi had been lax in her vigilance? Or had she simply thought Castiel would never notice? Had been adequately subdued?)

Castiel looked around his cell. It was exquisitely crafted. Even now an insidious inner voice cautioned him to accept this arrangement. Because this was what Naomi did when she was apparently grateful to Castiel and the Winchesters for ‘saving Heaven’, in Dean’s words. It begged the question of what she would do if they tried a jailbreak. The circumstances were harsh, but they allowed him to watch over his friends at least. They were not suffering - much. The Divine notion of penance would indicate that-

Bed springs squeaked. Dean had sat down heavily. Unguarded in solitude, his face was drawn, haggard, as if there was an old wound no angel could reach that had scarred over but still ached deep inside. 

Cas looked down at his friend.

“What would you do? Would you chance the status quo?”

Dean rubbed the back of his neck and craned it with a painful grimace. He was hung over, Castiel hadn’t had time to help with that. Then Dean clapped his hands on his thighs, propelled himself to his feet and trudged towards the door like he was about to kick his way through it.

“No,” said Castiel to his friend’s retreating back. “I don’t think you would put up with it. I think you’d stab the status quo in the throat, salt it and burn it.”

The door crashed open. “Sammy! Stop yanking on it and get up! We got a bitch to slice and dice!”

“Two of them,” muttered Castiel. “But first we need to break out of this prison.”

Naomi had him well locked up. He could find ways of contacting the Winchesters: via psychics, through their dreams, leaving them notes around the bunker...But without their memories, and with the firm conviction that angels were ‘bogus’, as Dean put it, this was going to lead to agitation and confusion rather than help. And it might let Naomi know Castiel had started to unravel her plan. That would be disastrous. No, Castiel had to break out of his own cell first, then he could free his friends. And that was not going to be easy. His penitentiary wasn’t just the constrictions. Castiel himself was ignorant of most of what could help him escape. 

But there was one thing Castiel knew from watching cop movies and episodes of The Wire over the Winchesters’ shoulders.

Every prisoner was allowed to make at least one phone call. 

“Dean? I need to borrow candles and spell supplies. Since the evidence points to him having survived Naomi, there is a demon I need to summon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To clarify: there are clues lying scattered around Dean’s brain about how he really feels for Cas, which Cas seems to have paid no particular mind to. But this fic’s Cas can’t see the fine nuances between brotherly love, friendship love, mutual trust and reliance on the one hand, and romantic and sexual love on the other. And since _all_ of those are also in the cocktail, he's not picked up on some of them.


	8. Drop a Dime on a Demon

The week that followed was not one of the best.

Sam and Dean got ever more upset and convinced that the bunker was haunted. The men of letters supply cabinet was repeatedly ransacked even though the lock remained untampered. Books moved around during the night. Dean’s lighter went missing. One of the many salt lines they laid down was (accidentally) scuffed while they were in the very same room. The EMF was useless in the bunker, and using video cameras, divination, spells and wards did absolutely nothing. They were all geared towards ghosts and demons, not non-existent guardian angels, even ones simmering with doubt, suspicion and a growing wrath.

Castiel’s hurry almost backfired. He had all he needed, but he was not going to do the summoning in the bunker. This space had to remain inviolate. Which meant the brothers had to leave, and they were now very curious about what was going on at home rather than abroad. Castiel spent several agonizing days wondering how to get them moving, but fortunately one of their friends in the hunting community, Jody Mills, called them about a vampire attack in her own prison, and that shifted the Winchesters out.

The vampire hunt was difficult, and Castiel now had to be careful about interfering. He did not think he was still under close observation, but he could not take a chance. So his brothers in arms got bloodied, their friend Jody got injured and a lot of vampires got dead - the last being nothing to regret.

Jody offered to put them up for the night, to Castiel’s consternation, but the Winchesters were leery of the other law enforcement personnel asking questions about all the headless corpses that had cropped up one county over. They opted to stay in Jody’s hunting cabin for the night.

Castiel waited until three in the morning, went outside the cabin as far as his metaphysical leg irons would allow him, and cast the spell.

It did not seem to work at first. No smarmy demon appeared. Castiel patiently reviewed the components and cast it again at the center of the devil’s trap. Of course he used a devil’s trap. Summoning demons was the ABC of What Not To Do for angels, but in Castiel’s mind, much worse would be summoning a demon and letting it run loose while his best friends were asleep less than twenty feet away. Besides, the demon he was summoning would expect a trap. As far as the creature was concerned, this and trying to stab him was the way the Winchesters and Castiel just said hello.

This time something happened. A section of the night air roughly the size of a person shimmered three feet to the left of the trap, and then seemed to solidify as if a mirror was hanging in mid-air. Castiel’s reflection appeared in it, barely there, glimmering and defuse. It faded in and out for a whole minute before it finally focused a little. Then it blinked out and another image replaced it.

Crowley, King of Hell, sat on a black iron throne, one leg crossed over the other, fingers steepled, that knowing leer in place as he said: “Finally thought of me, hmm? What took you so long?”

“Why are you appearing like that?” Castiel asked. Then frowned. “How are you appearing like that. I summoned you. You should appear here in the circle.”

“Oh please,” was all Crowley said. “As for why I am not appearing in my own cherished person...let us just say it was part of a delicate negotiation.”

“Negotiation?”

“Yes. A mutual lady acquaintance of ours - the upstairs auburn, not the downstairs ginger - decided she liked the devil she knows better than the one she’d heard scary rumors about. But she made me promise I would not come anywhere near you or your two little baa-lambs. She _bargained_ for it. Isn’t that funny? I didn’t tell her I’d pay good money to be allowed to stay away from those two walking stabbing death machines until the final end of times.” 

“You made a deal with Naomi?”

“Do my lips look frostbitten to you? No, we just have a...a mutual non aggression pact, you could say. Until my rival bites it. Then all’s fair in war and war.”

“If you have a pact-“

“Then how come I’m violating my restraining order?” Crowley interrupted Castiel’s next question with the most voluptuous smile. “Loophole. Naomi dear never got her head around legalese.”

Crowley put his chin in his hand, a finger tapping his cheek. “She also has no idea of what modern technology can do. I’ve been keeping an eye on your two shambling mounds of flannel without needing to get near them. A friend of a friend of a friend of mine tells me they say the oddest thing when you mention angels to them. Apparently they no longer believe in them. I laughed for a week when I heard that. Did me a world of good.”

He tapped his cheek some more.

“And nobody’s seen you around for ages. Yet one of my spies in the other camp said you scared Abaddon away from Moose and Squirrel before she got her very first threat out. Or so she claimed. However this demon was there and couldn’t see a thing.”

He cocked his head. Waited.

“It’s all very odd, isn’t it?” he finally prompted.

Castiel said nothing.

Crowley tapped some more. Shifted a foot. Started to frown.

“It’s your long distance phone call, halo, so I’m not one to complain, but did you have a reason for calling me?”

“When did you start kidnapping the next prophets after Kevin?”

Crowley was startled, though he tried to hide it. 

“ _When?_ Why do you ask that?” 

“Answer the question.” Crowley had already answered the first unasked one at least; that _had_ happened, then, it wasn’t a manufactured fantasy. And Purgatory had happened too, no angel could invent that nightmare out of thin air, not even Naomi. That chain of events happened coherently, though Castiel’s timeline on it was still fuzzy.

Crowley examined him and then blew out a puff of air. “Huh. You actually put me off my game there for a moment, well done, but I should have started with this. What’s in it for me if I answer _any_ of your questions? Even the weird ones?” he added in a mutter.

“An answer to your curiosity.”

Crowley snorted. “Not good enough.”

“As good as you’ll get.”

Crowley opened his mouth to shoot something sarcastic and reprehensible back at him, but paused and took a moment to examine the angel more closely. “You seem...tense, Feathers.”

“I am.”

“Why can’t anyone see you? Other than me and the ginger, it seems?”

“When did you kidnap the prophets?”

“Oh no, quid pro quo, Clarice.”

“Clarence.”

“...What?”

“It’s Clarence,” Castiel informed him. “The old nickname Meg gave me. I looked it up in a library, it’s a reference to a movie from 1946-“ he was interrupted by Crowley vigorously rubbing his face with his hand.

“Fine! I kidnapped my first next-in-line prophet back in November of 2012. You were still stuck in Monsterland, I believe.” Crowley’s tone indicated he wished Castiel had stayed there. “I picked up the rest over the course of a month - while your feathery lot ran around like headless chickens, not even sure what was going on. Kevin was the cherry on top, an early Christmas present to myself, but then you and the spearmint twins ruined it.”

So Castiel had been back from Purgatory almost a whole year earlier than he’d been led to believe. A whole year of memories, of interaction with Sam and Dean, gone. A whole _other_ year of Purgatory added to his penance - memories which would be all too easy to manufacture. Take a few days at random of unchanging violence, terror and bloodshed, and copy ad nauseum. Damn Naomi...

“Your turn,” prompted Crowley, leaning forward.

“I am locked out of the mundane dimension. Mortals cannot see me. The stronger demons alone can perceive me, and only if I make an effort to intersect with your plane.” 

Crowley barely blinked. “I thought you looked a little shimmery. I had to give the spell three extra kicks to focus even a bit on your picture, too. Why-“

“When Naomi was negotiating your pact, after she took you away from Sam’s trials, did she tell you what had happened in Heaven?”

Crowley snorted. “She wasn’t going to air out her dirty laundry in front of the opposition, now, what she.”

“What dirty-“

“Why did she put a whammy on Moose and Squirrel? Because I’m guessing that’s why they think angels are now collectible porcelain granny gifts. Why didn’t she just kill you all?”

Good question. “I am not sure,” Castiel answered slowly. “But I suspect gratitude. What little she is capable of. After we saved Heaven.”

“Saved it from- oh, the whole ‘shutting the pearly gates’ plan Squirrel was supposed to help you with? Sounded to me like a recipe for disaster, but hey, at least it gave me quality time with Samantha,” Crowley said with an unpleasant twist to the lips. 

Castiel, mind whirling, made a noncommittal noise - fortunately Crowley liked the sound of his own voice, because he didn’t notice.

“But maybe I got it wrong, because when Squirrel came back, he said you’d _stopped_ someone from shutting the gates. And he made it sound like a good thing. But I wasn’t paying much attention either way, I was more worried about my own front door at the time. Dean barely got the words out before he noticed his brother turning into a massive firefly, and got distracted.”

Damn it.

“Someone? Who? Who did I stop?”

He’d been very careful so far not to show his lack of knowledge...but that spontaneous question tripped him up. 

“Oh. Ooooooh,” said Crowly, straightening up on his throne. “Now I’m starting to get it. What’s wrong, angel? Did your hardware get hacked? Does Naomi have her little fingers in your synapses?”

Damn it, Crowley knew about mind manipulation of angels...? That was an unpleasant notion. 

“She could be looking over my shoulder right now, so I suggest you talk faster,” Castiel said coldly.

“Threats?” Crowley snorted. “Who do you think she’ll be more mad at? You or me?”

“She’s gone to great lengths to avoid killing me. I think you’re alive only on sufferance.”

“Hmf. Tough talk. I can see why you didn’t want me to know how few cards you were holding- and most of them blank at that. Well done, you’ve learned a thing or two, Castiel, but you realize I now have you over a barrel. Now is when we start talking terms- and you have a lot more to lose than I do. Two more things at any rate. You wouldn’t want anything happening to your fiancé and your future brother-in-law, right? That’d put a dampener on the wedding.” 

“Crowley, I am not going to make a deal,” Castiel bit out, ignoring the rest of the jab out of long habit born of dealing with Crowley. 

“Hah! Then how are you going to get my cooperation? I am not a cheap date, mister.”

“I need to know what leverage I have in Heaven. I think you may know. If you tell me, it will cost you nothing.”

“But it will also gain me nothing,” Crowley lectured with a wag of his finger.

“It will cost you nothing,” Castiel repeated in a steely tone. “It will only aid me. It will put me on the way to recovering my full faculties. When that happens, I will be dealing with Naomi, and I will be a much bigger threat to Abaddon.”

Crowley looked at him in silence for a short time.

“So drop you a free line of information and watch you go barmy on my enemies.”

“Yes.”

Crowley chewed his lower lip briefly. “I suppose I have heard worse plans. The idea of you and the band back together and rocking the greatest hits to an audience of screaming ladies does make my cockles tingle. However, I think that once you’ve gone through Abaddon and Naomi, my own tender bits might be next.”

“That is a risk you will have to take.”

“Or I could-“

“No deal.”

“Now angel, you-“

“I don’t have time for legalese and loopholes either. No. Deal. Just give me the information and stand back.”

“...Well back, I think,” said Crowley slowly, examining him with narrowed eyes. “I do believe you are rather angry beneath that doe-eyed exterior of yours. Hmmm...Very well. I can’t tell you much, I’m afraid. As I said, your crumpet was more upset about his brother going critical than a bunch of angels having a slapfight. However, he did let drop a name.”

“What name?”

“...This goes against the grain. Can’t we at least pretend-“

_“Crowley.”_

“Fine, fine. But I have a marker with you now, angel,” the King of Hell said with another finger waggle. “You remember that. If you can keep your mind this time around.”

“What was the name?”

“Metatron.”

 

\---

 

“Metatron.”

The ragged, bearded little vessel looked up. “Huh. Castiel,” he said a bit unpleasantly. “The guards didn’t mention I was getting a visitor today.”

“They don’t know.”

The once-fugitive Scribe of Heaven blinked.

Castiel’s fingers gripped the bars, though his Being and Senses were kept behind the Wards on the higher spheres. “We do not have a lot of time. We need to talk fast. The plan you and I had for closing the Gates of Heaven. Is it something we can still do?”

Metatron’s jaw dropped, a look of amazement on his face. Castiel hadn’t been able to find out where the angel had been hiding all this time - he’d barely been able to find out anything, really. But to have such expressiveness, the Scribe must have been hiding on earth a very long time.

“You...want to...uh...close the gates of Heaven...like we had originally planned? Together?” Metatron asked slowly and probingly. 

“Right.”

“Back when we were, uh, brothers in arms?”

“Yes.”

“....You had a trip to Room 101, didn’t you.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Nothing. Something I read in a book once.” The bearded face broke into a very large smile. “My good friend Castiel-“

“I am not letting you out of here.” 

“What?! Why not? We are compadres! Amigos! Besties! We-“

“Be quiet.” Castiel looked around tensely. Metatron’s cell was in complete isolation from even Lifer’s Row - he had wondered why briefly, but it was certainly convenient. It left him feeling a jab of sympathy though. “I’m not saying I won’t help you break out later, once I have a better grasp of the situation. But right now I need leverage against Naomi, and this threat of shutting the Gates is the only ammunition I have.” If the little bits and pieces of what he’d gathered from Dean’s dream and Crowley’s overheard words were correct, whatever he and Metatron had planned had certainly lit a fire under Naomi, and forced her to make a lot of compromises back then to get him to back off. It was worth a shot. It was pretty much his only gambit. “How do we do it?”

“Well, you see, Castiel - Cas, that’s what we people who are your best friends call you, me and Sam and Dean, all one big happy family. How are our dear boys, by the way? In trouble?”

“In considerable danger, yes, though not immediate.”

Metatron nodded wisely. “I had a feeling that was the case. I know them so well.”

“Look-“ Castiel’s Senses shot out. The guards were still distracted. But not for long.

It had taken him some effort and, well, to put it crudely, a Winchester level of pure bullshit to get past the guards. As well as the two enforcers who should have been watching him in the Heaven in which Naomi had given him his monthly furlough. Castiel was actually surprised - and just a little dismayed - at how relatively easy it had been to get here in final. The truth was, Heaven was armed and heavily defended against outside incursions, against the rise of Lucifer, even against internal strife and open revolt against God. But it just wasn’t equipped to handle a single angel doing the heavenly equivalent of talking confidently and pretending to be the FBI - or rather, pretending to have been inducted into Naomi’s platoon of internal police force. Castiel knew he was not a very good liar, but it hadn’t seemed to matter all that much. Angels, as Castiel was well placed to know, were after all fundamentally just a little bit naive and ready to do what they were told when spoken to loftily. 

If Naomi or her inner cadre had been anywhere in the picture, of course, this attempt would have failed immediately. But she had taken her forces and left unexpectedly five minutes into Castiel’s monthly report, because one of her spies had come back with information at just the right time. A heavily warded warehouse in a deserted dust-bowl city in the midwest was under siege by Abaddon; the demon was trying to work her way through the wards and defenses because she had heard very reliable rumors that it contained one of the last Heavenly Weapons Balthazar had stolen. 

That had caught Naomi’s attention, as Castiel and Crowley has known it would.

Crowley had tried to make Castiel pay a heavy price in promises when the angel had called him back to organize this. But the demon’s heart had not been fully in it; in fact he had failed to gouge Castiel on anything pretty much right from the get-go. Crowley seemed...off these days, as if he’d lost his edge. Or maybe he was just being honest when he said that the opportunity to see Naomi and Abaddon get into a cat fight over what was ultimately an empty warehouse was just too good to pass up. He was speculating about trying to fit a tub of Jello into the equation, but Castiel said this would alert them as to it being a ruse. Naomi would expect the angel-proofing and traps in a cache that Balthazar had set up - which would give Abaddon a fighting chance, and encourage her to battle instead of losing face yet again and flee. But even Balthazar would not have thought of Jello as something worth trying. Crowley had called Castiel a spoilsport, but had been so far remarkably helpful.

Castiel expected to pay for that in full one day. Damn Naomi for hounding him into the same corner as Rafael once had...

“Okay, we’re pressed for time, I take it.” Metatron gave him an intelligent look. The Being seemed to be both smart and on his side. It was a refreshing change. “And of course I can help you. Better, we can help each other. Do you know Naomi’s office?

“Yes.”

“Do you know the room you get to from her office, off to the right, where she does her thing?”

“No.”

“Oh. You know it. You just don’t remember it,” said Metatron with an unpleasant expression on his face, eyes turned briefly inwards.

Castiel’s Wings flared. 

“Hit a chord? Good. It’s not hard to find. It’s just that nobody dares go there. Only us poor saps who end up tied to that chair - and she’s careful not to overplay that hand, I have to give her that much. The jackboot in the silk glove, to mix metaphors. Yes, yes, time, don’t get your feathers ruffled. In that little cubby hole of hers is a cabinet. In there is a box, about this big, black with engravings on it. It’s heavily warded. I should know, she made me build it based on-...on some knowledge I have. No angel can open this box other than her.”

“What’s in the box?”

“The ingredients of the- I mean, the elements we need for - look, it’ll let us close the gates of Heaven if we choose, and it’s the best weapon to hold over her head. Just get it back here to me-“

“If she’s the only one who can open it, what good would that do?”

“Oh please. All you heavenly types think in such straight lines - even Naomi. I made damn sure there was a back door into that thing. I can open it. Trust me, Castiel!” Metatron beamed at him. “You bring me this box and all your problems will be over!”

 

\---

 

Before leaving, Metatron gave Castiel a few pieces of good advice on how to reach Naomi’s office again and who to kill on sight to get there. 

Castiel told him that this was out of the question. Maybe the lines he was drawing were arbitrary, maybe all lines had shifted or been thrown out the window since their Father had left, but in the solitary wasteland his life had become, Castiel was really only accountable to himself first and foremost, to Dean and Sam second, and to nobody else besides. And he was heartsick of having the blood of his Heavenly brethren on his hands.

Metatron’s acrimonious arguments were cut short by a Sense sweeping over them. One of the guards, getting suspicious. Castiel managed to evade his attention, but time was running out fast.

With a certain lack of grace, Metatron gave him a one-minute lesson and demonstration of something he called a Lesser Sigil. For an angel who could actually get close and wrestle one of his brethren to a standstill long enough to brand this into him - “Like you overmuscled Seraph types” - it would allow him to paralyze an angel for several days or until the Sigil was removed. Uncomfortable, but better than the alternative. Metatron gave him the spell a bit grudgingly but made it out as an act of good faith. Castiel was not sure why Metatron thought a one-time comrade needed such a gesture, but the scribe had been Naomi’s captive for months now, his faith in angel-kind was probably at the same all-time low as Castiel’s. 

This helped Castiel get back to Naomi’s office without casualties. He was particularly glad that he could leave Lochiel twitching helplessly on the floor, looking somewhat betrayed but very much alive rather than stabbed and burned out. He dragged the lesser angel into Naomi’s inner sanctum and retrieved the box. It was as heavily warded as Metatron had said. Now to take it back to the jail. And do something, undo the damage. Get Dean and Sam back. Get...

At this point, Castiel paused.

Time was running out like blood from a deep cut. But thinking of his friends, particularly Dean, made something stir deep inside.

Five years ago, when the angel Castiel Fell for the sake of the Righteous Man, he’d been devoted to him and his ideals of free will, courage, loyalty, all that. 

Five very complicated years later, a lot of mistakes, laughter, arguments, trust, injury and redemption had taken place, and their bond was more...complicated, on his side as much as Dean’s. Castiel was no longer devoted to the Righteous man. Instead, he knew and loved one Dean Winchester, a step down from an angel’s devotion perhaps, but a feeling more truly based on the entire man. The real Dean was cantankerous, stubborn, terribly quick to anger when his many vulnerabilities were prodded, broke most of the commandments and many of the scriptures, made mistakes for noble reasons and also selfish ones, and despite all that, or perhaps because of it, was the most amazing human Castiel had seen walk the earth in many generations. 

Five months of close observation without end of the world distractions had shown Castiel even more of the morass of tiny virtues and vices that made up his friend: the scams, the charm, the cunning, the lies, the self-delusions. They did not tarnish the man in his eyes, they were part of the puzzle that was Dean, and also Sam, and the rest of humanity at large. Humans were tiny, quick-lived things, but unlike angels their complexities ran deep and ever branching like fractal patterns, even their failings could warp into a strange kind of strength at times, and Castiel was starting to understand what God had seen in them, and in Dean Winchester in particular. And seeing so deep brought a form of knowledge with it. 

Castiel stood in Naomi’s office, a way out of this heart-rending disaster in his hands - and he could almost see Dean before him, as if the five months spent stuck to him had left a retinal afterimage. Dean, gruff and cocky and usually right, crossed his arms, lifted his chin and said, “If it’s too good to be true, Cas, it usually is.”

And if Castiel had still needed lessons in skepticism after Zachariah, Michael, Crowley, the Leviathans and that entire mess, Naomi would have been his finishing school. 

Castiel examined the box in his hands. It was roughly twenty inches by twenty, heavily warded, with a small lock in the front. 

Castiel looked thoughtfully at the lock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Humans have shoulder angels and devils, but Castiel has a mini Dean on his shoulder. Much more useful. Also, the word ‘love’ gets used again here, but with a different layer of meaning than the word Cas tripped over in Dean’s head.


	9. Smuggling a Shiv into Supermax

“Robert Singer, I need your-“

“Whaaah!”

Castiel absently dodged the geyser of beer from a hurled bottle. 

“I’m sorry. I should not have startled you.”

“You think?!” 

Bobby Singer let himself fall back into his ratty old lounger and put his hand on his chest - though he had to know that the chances of a dead man having a heart attack in Heaven were nonexistent. 

“And hello to you too, Cas,” he finally said acidly. “So nice of you to finally visit.”

“Hello. Sorry Bobby, I’m in a hurry.”

Bobby gave him one shrewd look. “Oh boy. What have those idjits gotten themselves into this time?”

Castiel opened his mouth- then shook his head. “I don’t have time to explain- and I’m putting you in danger ever moment I’m here.” How long until Naomi could chase away Abaddon? How long until she came back and found Lochiel on her inner sanctum floor, the box gone and Castiel in the wind?

“Oh, one of those situations. Great. Give me a minute.” Bobby heaved off the lounger, stomped to the rug, ripped it up, took chalk out of his pants and completed an impressive set of pre-painted wards with just a few strokes.

“There, that’ll keep Big Brother’s peepers out of the house for a few minutes. What’s in the box?”

“I don’t know. Here, can you open it?”

“You can’t?”

“It’s angel-proof.” 

Bobby snorted crudely as he tilted the box and brought the keyhole up to eye level. “It looks warded up the wazoo, but this is a straight up lock, it’s not even got tumblers in there. I can crack this by coughing on it loudly.”

“I thought that might be the case. Celestial Beings think in straight lines, I am told.”

It took thirty seconds and a bit more tinkering than a cough, but the box opened with very little fuss. Bobby reached in, poked the rich silk cloth with suspicion, then lifted it out. A corner fell back to reveal-

Castiel uttered a few words in Enochian (“Dogs have polluted your bloodline”) which was something he never ever did normally. On the mantelpiece, a re-creation from Bobby’s memories of a rare vase filled with bottle caps cracked and spilled some of its contents to the floor.

“Not what you were expecting, I take it?” Bobby guessed. “What is it?” 

“It’s a Tablet.” 

“A what?”

“A Tablet- it’s the Word of God.”

Bobby almost fumbled it. Then he held it carefully with both hands but only by his fingertips, as if he was afraid it was radioactive but that dropping it would cause a nuclear explosion. 

“That sounds...like something worth having?”

“No, it’s useless to me without Kevin Tran - and he is on Earth and heavily guarded. It’s also unbreakable, so I can’t even threaten Naomi with its destruction.” 

Did he have to take it to Metatron after all, see what the Scribe could do with it? Quite a lot, he could imagine, but since the Being had thought fit to _lie_ to him, Castiel could not trust him. There was only so far he would push deals and alliances of convenience these days, whatever the common enemy. He had hopefully learned that lesson...

“Here, you take it,” Bobby muttered, thrusting it at Castiel.

Castiel knew he couldn’t leave it here. It was better off with an angel, though it was going to make him a target- even more of a target. Now what? Castiel thought as Bobby placed the cold stone against his palm-

White flash.

_“C-Cas - it’s me - ah!”_

_Dean’s cheekbone crunched under the blow. Blood splattered to the stone floor. He grunted in agony. But he still lifted his head and choked out words through broken teeth._

_“We’re f-family- we need you -_ I _need you-“_

_Castiel lifted his fist again. The human flinched. The angel's blade was ready to finish the mission as he had a hundred times before-_

Something ached in Castiel’s vessel.

His throat. He’d shouted out a denial that still rang in the air.

Bobby was there, white faced and crouching before him. Which was when Castiel realized he was huddled against a wall.

“Cas?! You okay?!”

“No. No.”

“You aren’t okay?”

“I didn’t. I didn’t do that.”

“What?”

They were back in Bobby’s Heaven. The stone tablet was lying where it had fallen on the section of rolled-back carpet.

Breath whistled out through Castiel’s teeth.

“Here, get away from that thing.” Bobby pulled at his arm and blinked when this proved entirely ineffectual. “Cas? You want to sit down on the couch?” 

It was a toss-up to decide what had been the worst part of the vision. The look of pain - the raw physical agony and the emotional anguish - on Dean’s face. Or the way that had felt at that moment...When Castiel had lifted the blade, he’d felt nothing. He was the embodiment of holy war. The epitome of divine wrath. An executioner of higher orders without doubt or mercy. He’d been an angel. 

But surely that could not have happened. Dean was alive back in the bunker, Castiel had seen him alive and well only a few hours ago. And Castiel had never-...he would never-...

He took in a ragged breath while his Being unfurled from its wounded protective knot, his Wings lifting and shaking. Bobby grunted in something like surprise and tried to focus on them; trust the old man to crack part of the code that kept the human Heavens separated from the higher spheres. And invent angel-proofing in Paradise. And break locks. And dare to turn over stones and poke and prod and ask the hard questions, because somebody had to. Castiel had learned during the first Apocalypse that ignorance and following orders was not how he saved his friends or an entire planet of wonderful, flawed people. He had learned that an angel could doubt, waver, Fall, make mistakes and still do the right thing in the end. If he hadn’t learned that, he might as well stay in jail. 

“You need some whiskey? I don’t know if it’s real, it never seems to leave me with a hangover anymore- what- hey, no! Don’t touch that crazy thing!”

“I have to.” 

“What? Why?!”

“I think...it’s the price of knowledge.” The Apple had never tasted so bitter, he knew that for a fact - it would have been easier to keep the monkeys away from it if it had. But like Adam and Eve, he could not stay in the Garden. If he wanted to help his friends - if he wanted to help himself - he had to know. 

Castiel’s fingers flinched but stretched out and touched cold stone. 

 

\---

 

“Well _find him!_ ” said Naomi, her fine regimental voice successfully covering a screech by a narrow margin. 

Then she gasped as if a nasty thought had hit her, and she looked over her shoulder. “I- I will be in my office, I need to check- come get me as soon as you have something to report.”

She charged through her office door, slammed it shut, eyes on the entrance to her inner sanctum. She took one step- but then her gaze riveted on her desk instead. On the bare wasteland of black surface was an open box, twenty inches by twenty. An empty box.

Naomi opened her mouth-

It stayed open in shock as an arm caught her around the throat and yanked her back.

“Be quiet,” Castiel said softly in her ear. 

The point of his blade poking into her vessel’s throat was all the authority he needed.

Her vessel stirred against his, then froze. On the higher spheres, Naomi was realizing that however powerful she was in terms of rank, in a purely physical sense, a Record Keeper of Heaven, however tough and used to battles, was not on par with a Seraph.

“You...” then Naomi was quiet, fully taking in her position.

Outside, someone flew by at high speed. Orders were flitting across Heaven and over Angel Radio. The hush in the office was deadly by contrast.

“I was remembering the last time I was here,” said Castiel in a voice that might almost sound conversational. Almost. “The last time I was here of my own free will. Do you remember, Naomi? The occasion, I mean. I won’t ask if you remember what free will is.”

Naomi stayed very still. 

“Metatron had that drill an inch from the back of your skull.” Fortunately he’d stayed his hand just long enough to tell Naomi - and a horrified Castiel who’d appeared unbeknownst behind him - about the cruel exile to Earth he was planning for the Hosts of Heaven who had hounded him out so long ago. It had been illuminating. Both at the time and when Castiel had remembered it half an hour ago when all his memories had flooded back.

“All this time, struggling with what you had done to us, I could not figure out why you went to all this trouble. Locked us in your elaborate jail. I think your greatest hatred, Naomi, is for loose ends. Killing us would have been easier. Tidier. But you didn’t. Because I believe, deep inside, you were grateful that I had saved your life, saved the Host, saved the world from thousands of ejected angels. And what got me back here in time was Dean’s persuasion. You’d left already, but his exact words were, “Sounds like you made a mess up there, Cas. Get me to Sam and then go clean it up.” And I did, just in time. One minute later...But that minute is what counted. Is that why the Winchesters are still alive?”

Naomis eyes stayed fixed on her desk. “Castiel...where did you put the Angel Tablet?”

“It is safe.”

“Where?!”

“It’s in Heaven. Somewhere in one of the billions of Heavens. Hidden. I know exactly where, in case the Host really does need it again one day.”

“What??” This seemed to horrify her much more than the blade at her throat. 

“I don’t want it, and I wouldn’t take it to earth or risk Crowley getting his hands on it.”

“But- but- but anybody could get their hands on it up _here!_ ”

“No, not anybody. An angel might. Why is that such a great fear to you?”

Naomi’s feathers were ruffling in considerable agitation.

“You should try some self-examination sometime. I hear it’s good for you. But first....you made a mess, Naomi. Now we are going to go clean it up.”

 

\---

 

Dean and Sam were talking over mid-morning coffee and a pile of research, the wrappers of Dean’s favorite breakfast burritos littering the space around books and notepads. They were in the bunker. Castiel, not knowing if his raid into Heaven would be successful, had made sure his friends were in a safe place before he accepted Naomi’s recall for his monthly report, a few hours and what seemed like subjective years ago.

They’d had an angel amongst them for months now, perpetually unknown and unnoticed. 

Now they had two landing right in the middle of the library, both highly ticked off. Needless to say, unnoticed was no longer an option.

“ _Shit!_ ” Dean hurled himself behind the half wall of a recess and pulled out a gun. Sam tumbled back, and winced as a nearby light bulb shattered and sprayed him with hot glass. All the light fixtures were swinging and sparking, papers were flying up like tiny buildings lifted in a mini tornado, and a bookcase next to Castiel’s shoulder teetered and fell, sweeping two more over like dominoes.

A hush of falling papers and a few sparks-

Interrupted by three quick gunshots.

Castiel glanced down at the holes in his trench coat. Shoulder shots - nice grouping. Dean was aiming to disarm him. Castiel stretched out a Wing, his Grace flowing easily, freed from all constrictions by the Angel Tablet’s reset - 

But then he drew it back rather than flick the gun out of his friend’s hand. Dean would feel happier with his fingers on a trigger.

“Dean, I’m not here to hurt you. Please don’t shoot again, it won’t harm me.” 

He ignored the whatthefuck and the whothefuck that followed, and pointed a finger straight up. A massive sound like a thousand chalks on blackboard echoed through the room. The seal Bobby had shown him (‘the No-See-Um Singer Special, make sure you tell the boys I invented that, not Ash this time!’) traced itself into the plaster of the ceiling far above, near the stained glass. 

Naomi made a noise like an angry cat.

Castiel got his hand around her throat again. “Now. Undo your work.”

That got him a rare old glare. “Just like that?”

“I hope so. For your sake.”

“Listen. Castiel.” Naomi grimaced, and fought her own facial muscles and Intent into something slightly more conciliating. “Let us not be hasty. Remember, I cannot fix them anymore.” 

“You didn’t _fix_ them in the first place,” Castiel ground out.

“Let us talk about this- let me put their tiny minds to sleep and we can discuss this here, if you insist, on neutral ground.”

“No. Free them.”

“But- right now I could make this seem like a nightmare to them. The effect of bad food perhaps.” Naomi’s scathing glanced raked the leftover burrito at Sam’s previous place at the table. “Castiel, haven’t they been overall safer and more manageable these past five months? Let’s talk about this. If I cannot persuade you, it will be time later to undo the lock- but I do honestly believe that they are better off in ignorance. Right now, they don’t miss you or anything about you or Heaven.”

“But I miss them,” said Castiel, glancing at the brothers. Dean had the gun’s sights lined up with Castiel’s head, though he wasn’t wasting bullets. Sam had drawn the demon knife and was trying to sidle towards them unobtrusively.

“You won’t change my mind. I won’t keep them in the dark for their own good.”

“Really?” Naomi sniffed. “It seems to be the Winchester way.” 

“Yes. And I think it is a way the three of us have to unlearn.”

“Fine! I won’t try to reason with you!” Naomi straightened up, pawed uselessly at the hand Castiel still had at her throat, and gave him a fine glare. “But do stop threatening me in such a- a thuggish way. It is inappropriate and will get you nowhere. Do you think I am afraid for my own life, Castiel? I believe you when you say the Tablet is in Heaven. You’re an honest fool, at least. My troops will be waiting for us when we get back there. You can’t reach it anymore-“

“I can use Angel Radio again, though.”

Naomi’s eyes narrowed. 

“I’m back to myself, Naomi. Even when I wasn’t, I still had a good idea what was going on. Your power up there is not consolidated yet. The other angels listen to you, they obey you, but there is still some resistance.”

(“Angel? Did he say angel?” Dean hissed in the background.

Sam mouthed, “Should I?” and made vague stabbing gestures with the knife. Dean held out a hand and shook his head.)

“That’s why you’ve been parading me around Heaven during my reports. The dreaded Castiel, the one who came back from death, who struck terror through the Host. Now at your command. Walking at your side like a dog on a leash. Escorting you through the Garden and serving you tea. That seemed to impress them.”

“Are you-...” Naomi’s eyes widened in horror. “Are you threatening to start a war in Heaven for the sake of these _primates?!_ ”

“No. A war in Heaven would spill over onto Earth. But I could make a mess. You hate messes.”

That got him a look of pure vitriol.

(“Castiel? That what he said? Mean anything to you?” Dean muttered.

“Naomi’s biblical- Castiel is the angel of Thursdays in mythology and...something else? I always imagined them- er- dressed differently.“

“Angels don’t fucking exist. They’re both demons messing with our heads.”)

Naomi lifted a hand-

The blade slipped in just a little further, drawing more blood from her vessel.

“Be very, very careful what you do next.”

Naomi merely sniffed, then made a hand gesture, Wings flaring out, roiling with her Grace. She snapped out a few words in Babylonian, “Returning to the Garden of our Father, We walked in dutiful rows.” Castiel vaguely remembered this from a poem from that time era.

Sam and Dean collapsed into two startled heaps.

“Naomi!”

“Oh, please, this is just getting embarrassing. It’s like they’re your Brethren or something. They’re fine. The keyphrase has unlocked their memory, and this might be momentarily confusing and distressing to disorganized minds such as theirs-“

In the background, Dean was retching and Sam was curled up in the fetal position with his hands over his head-

“-but it will pass shortly. There will probably be some further lapses and confusion for awhile-“

“You made the change so easy to reverse?” Castiel stared at her in surprise. “Why?”

Naomi’s gaze, always so direct, suddenly twitched away from his. 

Gratitude only went so far. This...to make it so easy to undo- even though that must have implied more work, and potentially having that work come apart at the seams so much more easily than a permanent slash-and-burn job could...

...Naomi had been a Record Keeper originally, but had been the secret police of heaven long before the comet had hit the Yucatán peninsula. She did not like a mess. She liked her tidy endings. She’d been like that for eons. However, it was a fact that all the angels had been having a crash course in reality vs. scripture these past few years, as plans millenia in the shaping collapsed merrily around their ears. Heaven’s very existence had only recently been saved by two humans and their rebel angel, and the Gates of hell almost closed, and Lucifer and Michael caged, and the Leviathans let loose and then imprisoned...

It was possible Naomi, who was probably one of the smarter - if hidebound - of the angels left up there, had come to realize that the Winchesters were somehow, despite their human frailty, a force to be reckoned with. An instrument that should stay safely sheathed in ignorance but by no means permanently blunted. And their enabling angel as well. Maybe it wasn’t just gratitude. Maybe she’d kept them in reserve for the next world-ending calamity, while tidily stopping them from contributing to same with her memory wipe. It almost made sense if you were in Naomi’s head, which was a place Castiel, for one, would rather not have to speculate too much about.

“Now are you going to kill me?” Naomi asked, lifting her chin without the slightest hint of personal fear. 

“No. Despite everything...I never want to kill another angel again. As long as you leave the three of us alone.” 

“The three- You are going to stay with these barely sapient disasters?” Naomi scoffed in unfeigned incredulity. “You cannot be serious.”

“...Cas?”

Castiel looked towards Dean who was staring at him from where he’d propped himself up off the floor. 

No, not yet. Relief had to wait. Feelings had to- this situation had to be cleared up first.

“Naomi.” She blinked at his tone. Quiet. Dead serious. “Do you remember forcing me to kill Dean in that Crypt?”

“Huh?!” Sam in the background gaped, then made a wobbly lunge towards the demon knife he’d dropped. 

“Do you remember what made me stop, drop my blade and reach for the Angel tablet instead?”

“I can only imagine.” Naomi’s lips curled distastefully while her eyes flickered to Dean, staring back at them with a look of confusion on his face. 

“You had me too well programmed. I fought it to a standstill for a few seconds - but I couldn’t have held you off forever.”

Naomi looked at him curiously. 

“Do as you’re told. Obey your orders. Be a good soldier. That’s what you’d burned back into my head. But just then, you went and gave me a choice. Remember? That was your mistake. You said I had to choose. ‘It’s us or them’. Well I chose _them_. It will always be them. You will do well to remember it.”

Naomi finally got it. And was not pleased.

“You’re _loyal_ to them? Why?!”

“They don’t expect me to obey blindly. They let me make my own choices, and then stand by me to fix my mistakes. You would not understand.”

“This isn’t over.”

“Fuck yeah it is! Sammy, get the holy salad dressing!” Dean snarled, surging to his feet - staggering, still confused under the unsteady mesh of incoming memories but ready to fight. 

“You get it! I’ve seen a weapon like that-“ Sam went scrambling off to the right, almost running straight into a wall. 

Time, it seemed, was running out. Castiel let go of Naomi’s throat and lowered his blade.

“I don’t like you,” he said bluntly (Naomi’s expression returned the favor). “But I am not aiming to overthrow you. You don’t want another apocalypse, you don’t want to rule for your own benefit or ambition. You just want to keep things _tidy_. And if the others put up with that, then they probably want that too. But you are a cautious Being, and I think this last year has tempered your worst instincts. So fine. Keep your position. I will even help you. I’ll return for your monthly reports if you wish, and I will have tea with you and let you parade me in front of the others if that’s what it takes to keep the peace up there. I won’t interfere. I won’t even give you any advice unless solicited. Except this once.

“There’s a place for manipulation in any good ruler’s arsenal, but remember that you’re in the forefront now. You’re no longer the Host’s dirty little secret, doing the unpleasant necessary jobs in the shadows, keeping us in line after Lucifer’s Fall. If you want to lead, Naomi, then _lead_. From the front. If you do a good job, they’ll follow. And now...” 

Castiel glanced at Dean, holy oil and a lighter poised. And Sam, an angel blade ready with deadly intent despite the tag marked ‘where did we get this? Is this silver or some chrome rip-off?’ swinging from the handle. 

“Now I think you should leave,” Castiel suggested. 

“Hmf!” said Naomi. 

Neither brother looked startled when she vanished. Their memories were back in place, though possibly a little jumbled. 

Castiel sheathed his blade and faced the Winchesters with their wide, confused and increasingly furious eyes. 

Naomi was hopefully sorted, Crowley had his own deals that would keep Abaddon on the ropes, Metatron was still caged (and wondering where his favorite dupe had disappeared to no doubt). Now was a good time to get this sorted. 

And start apologizing. A lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that should show where the timelines diverged. In canon, Castiel did not make it back in that short minute, Metatron stabbed Naomi etc. and all the angels became large, flightless birds.


	10. Early Release For Good Behavior

The first order of business was to get the warding sigils back onto the Winchesters’ ribcages. That nearly got Castiel punched. Twice. They were both volatile, understandably so.

\---

“I’m sorry, yes, they collected Kevin-“

“Son of a _bitch!_ ” Dean grabbed the first thing at hand - a half empty beer bottle - and sent it smashing against the far wall, crossing the space where Naomi had been standing prior. 

“I’m sorry, Dean. It happened while you were away in Quincy. I-” 

“God damn it! Where is he? Did you at least go check on him?!” 

The implicit accusation in that question made Castiel wince. Dean was very protective of Kevin, he saw the young prophet as the responsibility of all three of his guardians - and Castiel realized, to his shame, that he had been more concerned with the brothers than with the young man who was considerably more defenseless.

”...No. I couldn’t leave. I was tethered to your location.” He was plowing through explanations - had been for three minutes now - and he seemed to be moving three steps back for every step forward.

Sam rubbed his forehead. “What? Tethered?”

“I couldn’t move away from you. I had to be within a twenty foot radius of either of you. Naomi-“

“And that’s another thing!” Dean yelled, striding over to jab an accusing finger into Castiel’s chest hard enough where it would have knocked a human over. “How could you let that bitch do that to us?! After she dicked with you last year, you just said, ‘Sure, go ahead, drill their skulls and fuck with their brains’? You even _helped_ her! You walked right up to me and hit me with fucking mojo-... God damn it, Cas! One word of warning and the three of us could have kicked her to the curb. Or at least _tried!_ ”

“I’m sorry,” Castiel said again (apology number five and counting). “If I had been in my right mind, I would never have stood for it. I knew it was wrong even when she was controlling me, but she-“

“Wait.” Sam put a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “She put the whammy on you first?”

“Yes. I drained myself of almost all my Grace healing-” One look at Sam’s face told him he should not have brought that up. Even Dean had flinched and looked abruptly away. They really did not need more guilt between the three of them. “While I was recovering, I was an easy target. She made me forget her previous brainwashing, and everything that happened recently. In my mind, I spent an additional year in Purgatory.” 

“Fuck...” Dean was staring blindly at the table at the center of the room. ”...When she came and picked you up, she said you’d saved heaven, that she was going to _help_ you. She swore she wouldn’t hurt you. That’s why I let her-...”

“Help me. Yes, that’s actually what she thought she was doing,” Castiel said with an edge of bitterness. “I remember her promise. She would see it as fulfilled, without the inconvenience of letting us interact.”

“That...fucking....bitch...” Dean’s voice had dropped, low tremors heralding an imminent volcanic eruption.

“I tried to talk her out of it. I knew it was wrong. But I was too weak - I didn’t know if I could defend you.” Though maybe he should have died trying...Maybe that would have gotten Naomi to stop... “I thought she would kill you if I resisted. I couldn’t let that happen. You’re my friends.” Remembering words fallen from Dean’s bloodied lips- “My...my family.”

Dean spun away and stalked to the far corner of the room, shoulders knotting under massive opposing reactions. 

“So that’s what happened with Abaddon?” Sam asked slowly. His eyes were unfocused as if using his eyeballs as a screen for a fast rewind of the past five months.

“Yes.”

“...Is that why I was feeling better? You-“

“I _missed_ you.” It was barely a tottering whisper from where Dean was standing with his back turned. A human would not have caught it. “Didn’t even know you and I still-” then he spun around and was back at full volume. ”And you were fucking _there?!_ The whole time? _Watching us?!_ ” 

“I did try to leave you alone in moments of intimacy. But the tether was...short.” His gaze lifted reluctantly to meet Dean’s-

”MOTHERFUCKER!”

“Hey, man, chill,” Sam said, staring at the rather impressive stack of books his brother had sucker-punched to the floor. “I won’t say it wasn’t creepy, but considering the alternative...”

“It was an invasion of privacy,” Castiel admitted. “But I couldn’t see a way around it at the time.”

“Okay. Okay. Wait. Cas...just give us a bit of time to...” Sam rubbed his forehead again. “Are we safe here?”

“Somewhat. You are warded against their vision, and the sigil overhead also hides us. But they know physically where we are- do you remember how to make the banishing seal?”

“Yes. But won’t that zap you away too?”

“Don’t worry about me. Use it if you have to. We can’t keep them out unless you ward the place- but then I’ll be locked out too...You...may actually be contemplating this,” Castiel said in dawning realization. 

“What?” Sam asked fuzzily. A few feet away, Dean had straightened up and looked like he was thinking hard about something. Castiel felt a sudden chill.

...One could say he’d deserve it. This latest of his mistakes was rather minor compared to some of his other more spectacular ones, but it could be the straw that broke the camel’s back. After everything that had happened over the last five years, it would make a cold kind of sense if the brothers kicked him out and made sure he could never come back. They probably had more than enough of angels messing up their lives.

“I...I will leave it to your decision. But I think - I hope Naomi will not take chances with us now. She’ll be conciliating as long as the Angel Tablet is in play. That’s a loose end she can’t afford.” 

“Okay. Sounds good. For now.” Sam didn’t seem to fully grasp all that he’d said but seemed willing to take a flier on it. “Guys? I’m going to...go lie down or something. My head is spinning. I need to let this all sink in.” He glanced over his shoulder. Then he walked over to Castiel and patted him on the back. 

“He needs to let it sink in too,” he said softly. “But I know- we both know you were between a rock and a hard place. You did the best you could, you kept us safe, and made sure she fixed us once you got the upper hand. Just...let us get our feet back. Dean too. Let him cool down. He’ll be okay.”

Castiel nodded glumly, more to allow the younger Winchester to leave and find his own peace with this than because Castiel really believed him.

Sam’s footsteps dragged a bit as he left. It highlighted the silence. 

Dean was still standing off to one side, fists knotted and shoulders tight with fury. Then he turned and made his way towards the exit without a single glance anywhere in Castiel’s direction.

Castiel had been running for days on righteous anger, tension and confusion, as well as gritty determination to undo his mistakes as much as he could. 

But at that moment every one of his mental sinews snapped and his entire Being shattered.

Dean had stomped halfway towards the arch -

“ _Don’t!_ ”

Dean stared down in fleeting shock at the hand fastened on his wrist but then gave a jerk - which failed to free him - and turned his head away again. 

Castiel told himself he should give Dean space - but he found he couldn’t.

“Let go,” said Dean through his teeth. Still not looking. 

Castiel’s hand only tightened. No. No, it could _not_ be like last time Dean had been this angry with him, after Castiel had lost the Angel Tablet to Crowley’s schemes.

Dean hadn’t yelled then, had hardly said anything. He’d just ignored him. As if Castiel was no longer even worth his disappointment and anger anymore. That had been worse than any amount of blame. The pain of it- It had sent Castiel into Metatron’s snares through sheer unthinking desire for redemption. And now? Heaven was sealed to him, Castiel had nowhere else to go. If Dean kicked him out or ignored him after the five months Castiel had been through, he might well go a little bit insane again. 

But Dean looked around - and his eyes did not have that empty, dismissive look, not at all. No, there was anger there, but also a deep hurt and something like humiliation - though mainly anger. A whole lot of anger. 

“Cas- let - me - the hell-” but he broke off, startled, when he met Castiel’s eyes and saw the angel’s expression.

“Strike me.”

“What?!”

“If that’s what it takes- hit me, yell at me-“

“You a sucker for punishment? Let go!”

Castiel gripped harder- he was going to leave bruises.

Dean turned back to face him fully and said: “Cas. Let go.”

Castiel released his fingers with some effort.

Dean barely glanced at the red marks on his wrist and crossed his arms severely over his chest. “What the hell was that?”

Castiel started to explain-

What came out was fast, spontaneous, aching and edged with a completely inappropriate _anger_ and entirely not what he’d intended. 

“I missed you too. And I did not have the luxury of forgetting you. I was _there_ but I couldn’t talk to you- I could barely help you. For _five months_. You _forgot_ me. You forgot everything we’ve been through together. When I remembered - I didn’t want to make another mistake, I _needed_ you. But you couldn’t hear me. Nobody could hear me...”

The last few words were low and hoarse as Castiel caught up with what he’d said. He had the horrible feeling that he’d been _complaining_ , which was not only something an angel should not do, but was massively unfair on his part, as Dean, the truly injured party here, was surely going to point out.

Dean was silent. Castiel thought his friend was staring at him, but it was as if his own gaze weighed more than he could carry right now, it was dragged down to a few shards of broken light bulb off to Dean’s left. 

Castiel took a deep breath - he did not physically need to, but it helped regulate the adrenaline flooding his vessel in reaction to the feelings that had crashed through him on the higher spheres. His fingers had knotted into fists, shaking with the effort forcing them to stay at his side. 

“If you need time...I understand. Just- stay in the bunker. It’s safer here. I’ll go somewhere you can’t see me. I’ll be out of range. I give you my word.” His voice was even more gravelly than usual. “But don’t-...don’t put up wards against me. I...have no right to ask this. But don’t-” don’t shut me out...

Dean stood still for what seemed like eons, the time it took for mountains to rise and crumble back into meaningless dust.

Then he reached up and gripped Castiel’s shoulder.

Castiel tensed and looked up quickly, half expecting a punch. 

The anger was still there, but banked. The pain was there too, but it had changed.

“Hey. It’s okay.” Dean’s voice was still rough from all the yelling. “It’s fine. I’m okay now.”

He must have felt how dubious that statement was, because he gripped harder.

Castiel looked at him, wary and confused. “...Do I still have to go?”

Dean shook his head. “You just pulled five months in the icebox, being alone is the last thing you need right now.” He gave Castiel’s shoulder a shake. “We’re not kicking you out. Okay? It never crossed my mind for a second and same for Sam - especially if sending you to the cornfield means Naomi might get her claws back in your head. Hell, not letting you out of my sight again,” Dean muttered low enough where a human might not have made out the words. 

In the silence that followed, the beer stain down one wall lost its last few bubbles of foam. 

“Okay?” Dean finally asked. “Talk to me, Cas. You’re just staring at me with that usual hangdog look and I can’t tell if you’re feeling better or if you’re still hurting.”

It was as if the question didn’t even make sense. Castiel couldn’t make sense of it at any rate. His gaze dropped to the floor again.

“...Still hurting. Come here.” Dean heaved a rough heavy sigh and stepped forward, wrapping his arms around Castiel in a loose hug. “Welcome back, buddy.”

Castiel stood there unmoving, like a puppet with its strings snapped. 

He couldn’t make sense of anything that had happened after he’d grabbed Dean’s wrist. It just did not seem to fit into the way things were, like gravity had suddenly inverted. Shouldn’t Dean - who was mad at him - who was the injured party here- shouldn’t he-

Dean tightened his hold around the angel’s shoulders. 

“Cas, it’s okay,” he muttered. “I’m...I’m fucking mad, but not really at you. You got screwed by those assholes too. You did your best in a crappy situation. I shouldn’t have unloaded on you quite so bad.”

Slowly Castiel reached up and returned the hug gingerly. It seemed to take all his concentration to move his arms. 

Could Dean really just move past the massive violation of his mind, his memories, his privacy? Put aside his anger to comfort the friend who’d unwittingly contributed to it in the first place?

Castiel could not fathom such forgiveness. Such a gift. He let his chin sink against Dean’s shoulder, the blend of scents that was uniquely Dean’s enveloping him, the faint light of Dean’s soul warming him like the Light of Heaven. 

Dean stiffened but did not tell him to quit it.

Castiel listened to the slowing beat of Dean’s heart, losing the staccato of stress and fury. A dozen beats. Two dozen. Three dozen. An odd thought- maybe Dean was getting some kind of comfort out of this too. The thought didn’t seem to make sense either, so it fell by the wayside...

Dean shifted. His left hand moved and patted Castiel on the neck. “Okay. O-kay. Waaay past the point of embarrassing and cruisin’ straight towards the rocks here.” 

Castiel did not understand what he meant. Thoughts seemed to have trickled out of him.

Dean left his hand on the back of Castiel’s neck. Then he turned his head and kissed him light and quick on the corner of the jaw, which was not something he’d ever done before. Then he patted Castiel’s back brusquely. Coughed. Shifted. Drew in a breath as if to speak. 

After another fifteen seconds: “Cas? You okay now?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure I remember what ‘okay’ feels like anymore.” Castiel had spent millions of years in untiring battle against the forces of evil or on patrol, but that had been his purpose, his job, his orders. By contrast the last five years of rebellion and free will had been unaccountably rough and something in him, some resistance, some inner strength and certitude, had frayed a little more after each mistake, after every disaster. Then the last few months - a mere speck of time in his eternal life - had ground him down like the mills of God. Now he finally felt as if he had something real and solid to hold onto. Just for awhile. 

“...I mean, right now?”

“No.”

Dean said nothing. There was a certain stiffness in his frame.

Castiel straightened abruptly, arms falling to his side. “You were trying to tell me to let go.”

“Uh. Yeah.”

“You should have just told me.” Castiel took two steps back. 

“Huh-uh.” Dean moved his hands around, first to his hips then crossing his arms over his chest as if trying to find something to do with them. He was looking around the room. “So...we okay?”

“...Are we? You were very mad at me not five minutes ago.”

“Still am,” said Dean in a way that sounded entirely pro forma. Most of the anger had leeched away, though the space between them felt stretched and thin like newly healed skin over a recent burn. 

“That was...mainly I was mad because I was - it’s real awkward. That you saw all that,” Dean finally said, glaring at the broken beer bottle as if wondering who was the moron who had thrown that.

“Why?”

“Dude. It’s called privacy for a reason. Which I bet you get just as much as personal space. Oh, just do me a solid. Can you not tell Sam about...anything?”

Castiel felt a pinch of panic. He was beyond grateful for Dean’s forgiveness but that was an impossible request. “I can’t _not_ talk to Sam.” 

Dean made a huffing noise. “I meant about the stuff you saw me do? The stuff I was trying to keep to myself?”

“If you mean the drinking, I think he knows.”

“I meant the hookups, you freak.”

“You brag about those.”

“Uh-“

“Oh, you mean with the men.”

Dean glanced up at the ceiling as if trying to blame Heaven for all this. “And he just went there. Of course he did. Why wouldn’t he?” he muttered. 

“Why do you not want Sam to know about the men when you don’t mind-“

“Sam doesn’t know about those, right?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Wouldn’t you know?” Dean asked with some asperity. “Weren’t you stuck to my shoe like gum?”

“He didn’t see anything. But he might have deduced it. He understands you well.”

“Awesome. Oh fuck it, he won’t mind. He might jerk my chain- hell, that’s the best case scenario. No, he’s going to act all _understanding_ and want to _talk_ about it and say it’s _okay_ and I’m still his brother and he loves me. Then he’s going to buy me rainbow sweaters and polo sets and then I’m going to have to put a hurt on him. So can you not tell him?”

”...I think-”

Dean didn’t wait for an answer. “And I guess I should apologize to you,” he said so gruffly that Castiel didn’t actually feel apologized to. “It wasn’t your fault you were stuck there, and it must have been...not fun. Sorry you had to watch that. You must have been embarrassed.” 

Castiel tipped his head to one side, considering that. It had been ‘not fun’ for a lot of reasons. But Dean’s attitude implied that if the positions had been reversed, he’d have absolutely _hated_ watching his best friend have safe consensual sex with someone else. 

“It wasn’t amusing, no, but I wasn’t embarrassed. I don’t embarrass like humans do.” 

“Huh. Guess not. Must be like watching baboons going at it at the zoo for you, right?” said Dean bitterly, looking at the cabinet where he kept the bottles of liquor rather than at Castiel. 

“Humanity is my Father’s finest creation. Don’t listen to the Naomis up there, you are much more than mere primates.”

Dean didn’t seem to be fully listening.

“I mean, you weren’t...you didn’t...” He rubbed his face, his concentration appearing to be on the cabinet’s liquor selection before choosing seemingly at random. “It had nothing to do with you. You get that, right? Of course. I didn’t want you to feel-...but of course you didn’t. Didn’t mean anything to you at all. So that’s cool.” he said with an expression that didn’t match the words in any way. 

“I was not embarrassed,” Castiel reiterated helpfully, joining him at the library table. Then added, “But I wish you had found what you were looking for.”

The glass Dean had been reaching for went skittering out of his tense fingers and spun across the varnished oak. Castiel made a quick grab and caught it before it could shatter on the floor. 

“What...the hell?”

Castiel looked at him inquisitively as he handed back the glass. Dean ignored it. There were two angry spots of color back in his cheeks and his eyes were hard and furious.

“You said you were not in my head!”

“I wasn’t.”

“How do you know what I was feeling then?” Dean asked tightly. 

“Observation.”

“Fucking- how close were you watching?!”

“After that first man in Minneapolis -” Dean slammed the bottle down on the table and braced himself on the edges as if he was about to flip the massive thing. ”-I was worried. I did not intrude, I just kept watch - for awhile. I had a feeling something was missing, but I don’t know what.”

Dean took in a deep shuddering breath, the whole heavy wooden table shaking beneath his clenched fists. But then he exhaled slowly and reopened his eyes. “Fine. Fine. No big.”

He turned around. Then he reached back and grabbed the bottle by the neck. 

“I’m going to go-...you okay staying alone now? Do I need to leave you a paper bag or something?”

“Why would I need a paper bag?”

“You could stuff your head in it,” said Dean a bit shortly

“I don’t see how that would help. But I am alright now. I’ll go see Sam. He didn’t look well. And we do need to talk about our defenses.” 

“Right. You do that,” Dean said shortly.

They headed in different directions but Dean looked back before Castiel could reach the corridor leading to Sam’s room.

“Oh. We agree, right? Don’t tell Sam.”

“I won’t.”

“Good-“

“But you should.”

Dean bared his lips in a grin that was more like a snarl. “What the fuck did I just say about polo sets?”

“I don’t know what those are or why they should matter. Dean, I am tired of keeping secrets. They always seem to betray us.”

That seemed to hit Dean hard. Castiel had felt the same bitter revelation earlier. This habit of protecting each other by taking on burdens, by hiding parts of themselves out of shame or hurt or anger...’The Winchester way’ as Naomi had dubbed it, and it really needed to stop. 

“I know what you mean,” Dean said heavily after a minute of silence, staring at the bottle in his hand. “But some secrets are necessary.”

“Which ones?”

“The ones that could fuck up a good friendship. I’m not talking big secrets. Just small stupid things. Mistakes.”

“Don’t friends forgive mistakes?” Castiel was rather counting on it. 

Dean took a considerable time to answer, but in the end, all he said was, “Yeah. I guess.”

“Though I don’t see why Sam would care who you have sex with. I think you should tell him.”

“What?” Dean blinked and looked around without quite meeting Castiel’s eyes. “Oh. Maybe one day. You okay now? I need to-...go somewhere.” He made a vague gesture off to the left. 

“Yes.”

“Cool,” Dean said shortly. He didn’t move right away. When he did, he first walked back and clapped Castiel on the shoulder. “Good to have you back, man.”

He still hadn’t met Castiel’s gaze.

The angel tried not to let it bother him.


	11. The End of the Sentence

Sam was tired, confused - angry too - yet he kept picking at each new detail like a scab.

“Kevin...you _sure_ he’s safe, Cas?”

“As sure as I can be. The Hosts would not hurt him. More reassuringly,” Castiel added with faint irony, “Crowley no longer has any Tablets to translate. He’ll concentrate on Abaddon rather than on circumventing Heaven’s guards. I hope.” 

“We need to find him. Check on him.”

“We will.”

Sam rubbed the back of his neck. He’d been lying down on his bed when Castiel had shown up, but he hadn’t been asleep. He was now sitting on the edge, staring at the floor. “Man. The Angel Tablet. You sure it was a good idea to leave it up there?”

“No. But I didn’t have any other option in the short time I had to think about it. I was not going to take it back here. It is not for humans.” Good thing Dean wasn’t around to explode again, but it really was the truth. “That Tablet is just too dangerous for anyone to have, but Heaven perhaps less so. And keeping it would have made us a target for every major player left on the board.”

“Yeah, I know. But...you didn’t leave it with...” Sam glanced around, up at the ceiling, the door, then hissed, “with Bobby, right?”

“No. That would have put our friend in unacceptable danger.”

“Good. Um...you probably shouldn’t tell me-“

“I want you two to know, in case something happens to me,” Castiel stated calmly. “I left it in Naomi’s office.”

“You...I’m sorry, you _what?!_ ”

Castiel looked down at the floor morosely. “I wish I could trust every angel of the Host. But the truth is, and whatever I told Naomi, I do not. I was not going to leave the Tablet where just anybody with God-delusions could find it. Their first stop after that would be either Metatron or Kevin.” 

“Her _office?!_ ”

“Yes. I drew Bobby’s sigil on the silk cloth around the Tablet, then I took away one of the panels in her inner sanctum and hid it there. That movie you watched last month gave me the idea. The one where that man in a suit traveled to several continents and shot people.”

“But...but...”

Castiel shrugged. “I think it’s safe. It’s in the new nerve center of Heaven, heavily guarded from outside attack. In addition, Naomi is the only angel allowed in there, the only one who would dare go into that place uninvited. Naomi...thinks in rigid lines. It won’t occur to her to check for something so simple. So human. But if she does...well, I do not like her but I think she has learned a valuable lesson, and she will be less disastrous than others.” 

“Cas...that...is awesome.” Sam broke into a large grin and fell back onto his bed, chuckling. It made Castiel smile faintly too. It felt...good to share that once more. He wondered if he would ever have that with Dean again...

“Okay, that’s recharged the batteries!” Sam got to his feet and waved Cas forward. “Come on, time for a put-together lunch and a lot of research. We need to lock out all angels bar yourself. And we know how.”

“We do?”

“Sure! That box! I’m sure your angel memory remembers those wards on it. If it can stop anybody other than Naomi from opening it, maybe we can do something that will stop any other angel than you from coming in the bunker. Oh, yeah, where are all our Enochian and angel books? There’s hardly any in the library. There’s like, only two left, and those are mythologies and mostly wrong.”

“Naomi was not going to leave any books around that might give you clues all those months ago. The more valuable tomes were removed to a storage space in Heaven. The others are hidden in the foundations. I will get them for you.”

“Damn. And talking of Naomi and her stupid games, the second research project is, how to stop mind-monkeying.”

“That’s not an issue.”

“Oh?”

“After the extensive work done on us, any further attempts at control will either fail or result in a permanent vegetative state.”

“...Somehow I don’t find that reassuring. Come on, let’s hit some books, brainstorm and find a way to kick those other halos out for good.”

“Very well.” Castiel decided this was the best step in the immediate. But one day soon, he was going to have to have a talk with Sam, now that he finally could. He would need to admit to the younger Winchester that he had invaded his privacy on another level than his brother, and that he guessed the origin of the burden weighing his friend down. The weight of the world grinding him down like Atlas, the burden of the never-ending hunt. A weight that Castiel could share once again, leaving Sam with, perhaps, a way out one day.

But that would be later. Right now they had to plan their defense. 

 

\---

 

Dean and his chosen bottle joined them for a late lunch of sandwiches. Sam glanced fleetingly at the liquor but didn’t comment. Dean didn’t contribute to the discussion about wards. He drank in silence, listening. When it came to strategy and how to apply what they found, however, his comments were short but incisive. 

Castiel got deep in a conversation with Sam about locking seals at one point. He caught Dean looking at him ruminatively from the corner of his eye, but Dean was looking desultorily through a dusty volume when Castiel glanced around. 

It was too complicated to reproduce the box’s warding in one go, since they had no instructions on how to key it in to one angel. It would require research and experimentation. But between the two of them, Castiel and Sam found an easy modification of the angel warding that would block angels without evicting them. This meant that no angels could enter the bunker, and also that Castiel couldn’t leave until the wards were removed.

“Really? That’s the best we can do?” Dean said suddenly from his side of the table. “Lock him up?”

“It’s only temporary,” Sam said tiredly. It was past seven o’clock. They’d been working on this all afternoon.

“I don’t mind, Dean,” Castiel said firmly, looking around - unable to catch Dean’s eye once more. “I would rather have you both protected.”

Sam nodded. “One of the wards is right next to the door, we can always break it if we need to.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean muttered.

Sam rubbed his face, fingers lingering and pressing against a spot above his eyes. “I need a break. I might go for a run before it gets too dark.”

“You do that,” said his brother, stretching and making his joints pop. 

Castiel tensed, unwilling to say anything, yet-

“Or not.” said Dean for no apparent reason, releasing his stretch and looking into his glass.“Save the healthy shit for another day. We got too many targets painted on our backs.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” said Sam after a fleeting look at his brother.

Castiel relaxed.

“So now on to the next lady in this line dance of evil bitches. Abaddon.” Dean got to his feet and went striding through the library stacks. “’Cause we got her to worry about too.”

“Oh. Yes. I forgot to tell you-” 

Dean did a one eighty and turned to give Castiel a _look_. It was not a comfortable look, even if it was the first one since before lunch.

A lot of information was exchanged at this point over a dinner of reheated pasta and beer. Castiel caught the brothers up on the more recent news on the war in Hell. For his part, Castiel learned about Crowley’s blood addiction. He thought it explained a lot.

”Or else the douche was just trying to rope you in with a set of favors,” Dean growled. In addition to the beer, the liquid in the bottle had taken a dip, though Castiel noted that Dean had not drunk as much as he usually did today.

Silence settled over the library, a tense sort. Castiel glanced from one brother to the other, puzzled. Sam and Dean were looking at each other, one of their silent conversations. Castiel thought he caught the slightest twitch of Dean’s head towards the archway out of the library.

Sam stretched and unfolded his long body from his chair. “Past nine. I’m going to go have a break. Maybe get an early night. Head’s still reeling.” He passed near his brother, dropped a book off near Dean, leaned over and muttered, “Behave. No yelling. Talk it out.”

“ _Goodnight_ , Samantha.”

“Goodnight, jerk. See you tomorrow, Cas. Or, you know, if you need anything. If you need to talk, I’ll be in my room, I won’t be sleeping right away-“

“If he needs his hand held, he knows where you are.”

Sam gave his brother a particularly penetrating stare and then headed towards the archway.

“Goodnight, Sam. Thank you,” said Castiel.

Sam merely sighed as if he was already concerned about something, but he didn’t look back...

Then it was just the two of them, as it had been earlier today. Castiel was sitting on the other side of the table, kitty corner to Dean, who was half lounging in his chair, looking blindly at the book his brother had left behind.

“So...”

Castiel waited politely. Dean didn’t add anything right away, though, he poured himself a drink first, a small one which he tossed down without a pause.

“I was thinking about what you said this morning.” He put down his glass very precisely on the center of the book’s embossed leather cover. It was an old tome on warding magic, not very accurate but with useful information nonetheless, and probably one of ten copies left in the world, but Castiel decided not to say anything. He waited instead. A lot of things had been discussed this morning. He was not sure which one Dean was contemplating.

“About keeping secrets,” Dean finally said. “I think you’re right. We shouldn’t.”

“Oh, did you tell Sam?”

“What? No. Ugh. Don’t sidetrack me,” Dean said, rolling his eyes. “Look. There’s something you should probably know. Something I’ve kept to myself for a bit now. Maybe this is one of these things that needs to be aired out, though, because it’s part of what made me so angry-...”

Dean stopped abruptly, gave Castiel a truculent look, then rubbed his face with his hand. “Know what? I’ll just cut to the chase instead of making it a Girl Scout lecture on sharing feelings.” He seemed to want to get some unpleasant duty over as quickly as possible, “Those guys I hooked up with. You’re right. There was something missing. There’s always been-...I mean, it was okay but it was just hookups. I do know what was missing, though.”

Castiel tilted his head curiously. 

“You, you bastard. It was you.”

Castiel frowned. “What about me?”

Dean stared at him. Then he balanced his chair back on two legs, boots on the venerable oak table, and looked at the ceiling. “Well that’s just typical. Here I am- I didn’t even remember you and it was like something was carved out of my- my guts.” His fist angrily thumped his chest (and not his abdomen, as would be more anatomically correct). “Like I had a hole shaped just like you that I was carrying around. And you have no fucking clue. Even after all these years.”

There was a short pause. Maybe Castiel was supposed to ask a question. He didn’t even know what to ask though. What clue was he supposed to have?

“You know what?” Dean said slowly, still addressing the ceiling. “I’m glad I told you anyway and I don’t even care if it blows up in our faces, I’m tired of this. There’s always something. The end of times, one of us going off the deep end, fucking Purgatory- _Purgatory_ , man. You know how many times Benny suggested he take a hike and leave us alone? And you always said that was a fucking stupid idea because of monsters and shit.”

Castiel remembered that happening, though not any instance of him using the word ‘fucking’. Or ‘shit’. He had used the word stupid. It had been a stressful time and he had not ‘been in a very good place’ to use the human phrase (or literally, come to think of it.)

He’d been so afraid that his penance would rip Dean to shreds alongside him. But he’d helped get Dean away safe and sound. Which should have been all that Castiel could want. And every moment of every day running from death after that, he felt like half of him had been ripped away. The monsters were almost a welcome distraction from the aching absence that his friend had left-

That memory caught on a similarity in what Dean had just said. 

And ran into a few other things he’d seen or heard or witnessed these past few months, in person, by inference or in dreams. 

His intuition in regards to humans was sub-par, but he knew Dean.

And in this knowledge, a lot of little pieces had added up. As if his friend were a puzzle he’d been putting together in his mind for years now, and he could finally make out the picture - though there was a hole still, a gap whose ragged edges he’d been glimpsing these past few months, and perhaps for longer than that. One missing piece that was shaped oddly like-

”...Me?”

Dean was still staring at the ceiling. “And we have a touchdown. Finally. I was thinking I was going to have to write it in a Hallmark card and get a skeevy naked cupid dude to drop it off at your doorstep.”

“But I’m-“

“An angel? Yeah, thanks I kn-“

“-male - my vessel-” Castiel stopped talking and his mouth formed itself around a silent ‘Oh’.

The chair landed back on the ground with a thump. Dean didn’t look anywhere in his general direction. “Great. So now you know. You can fly off to Jupiter or wherever you go to recover from gross human stuff.”

Not with those wards locking him in. Not that- But - Jupiter? Gross human stuff. What?

Dean suddenly laughed, the sound both loud and remarkably humorless. “I remember you in that cat-house I took you to. Never seen you look so uncomfortable before or since. You _can_ get embarrassed.”

Castiel frowned, only slightly distracted from the thoughts and conclusions and speculations thundering through his mind at speeds normally reserved for flying several times around the planet in a few seconds, looking for something important. “That was not embarrassment, that was just unpleasant.”

Dean chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, I know. And it was also really funny. You and sex go together like silk panties and roadkill.” 

“I don’t know about that,” Castiel said a bit absently. “But that woman didn’t like me. She didn’t like men. When she took my hand she started thinking about her father, and she was not happy at the idea of-“

“I need booze to cope with that thought,” Dean interrupted, reaching for the bottle. 

Castiel watched him unscrew the cap as if this required every ounce of Dean’s concentration. 

“If I was to have intercourse with anyone,” Castiel said slowly, “I would choose a friend. A good friend. Someone who knows me for what I am.”

He’d put that out there tentatively, afraid he was reading this situation wrong. He had no idea how he might be reading _this_ straightforward situation wrong, but he was sure that if there was a way, he’d find it and stick an appendage in there. 

Oddly enough, Dean did not look surprised or offended. He didn’t look pleased either. He looked like he’d expected that. 

“Yeah, don’t say that,” he said calmly, pouring the alcohol until the tumbler was filled nearly to the brim. “Not if you don’t mean it. And you don’t. I’m not talking about our, you know, us being friends. And seriously, I only told you about this because I really think you won’t go all weird on me. You said it before, we’re family, that’s what matters. But what I am talking about here is not some deep spiritual bond bullshit.” He gestured with the glass, spilling some of the liquid. It seemed Dean thought spiritual bond bullshit was vaguely round in shape. ”This is stupid sordid human stuff, that’s all it is. It’s what made it burn to think that you - you of all people - watched me-...I’m talking about sex here. Okay? Nothing else. Just plain ol’ sex. The beast with two backs. Good dirty fuckin’ fun for two-“

”Yes. Intimacy. Pleasure shared.” What did he think Castiel had been talking about?

The glass thunked on the table as Dean’s calm finally took a blow. “Okay, that sounded downright creepy,” he said, staring at Castiel and still not looking pleased.

“Why?”

“...Because it almost sounds like you wouldn’t mind.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“And you have no idea what any of this means!” Dean snapped. “You fucking halos are all aces! Right?!

“Aces-“

“Not interested in ass!”

Well yes, not entirely inaccurate, but neither exactly true. “If that were really the case, the human race would not have become nearly extinct some twelve thousand years ago from the influx of nephilim, and the world would have been spared the flood,” Castiel pointed out.

Dean stared at him hard. In his hand, the glass creaked as it was increasingly pressed down on the wood of the table. 

“You’re saying...angels actually do-...But Ann- uh, some angels told me it’s not...done.”

“Most angels would agree, but others- you _met_ Balthazar, didn’t you?”

“...He’s got to be a special case.”

“That is a very accurate description of him,” Castiel admitted, “but the principle still stands.”

“You...you wouldn’t mind...” Dean’s eyes narrowed. “You aren’t just talking theoreticals here? Are you saying you’d be okay to-...with _me_?”

Since they’d been circling the question for the past seven minutes, Castiel had had time to think about it. Angelic thought process was very fast. He could have given Dean his reasoning and conclusion in iambic pentameter by now, but Dean would not appreciate that. In fact blunt was best, because Castiel needed to be absolutely sure they were talking about the same thing; Dean was leaving a lot of holes in his own sentences. 

“I would be, ah, ‘okay’ having sex with you. I never thought about it before, to be honest. I hadn’t realized you wanted this from me. But from what I know of the act, it should be a fulfilling experience. For both of us.”

“Fulfilling. Right. You still have no fucking clue,” said Dean, each word a bullet racking into a clip. “I have had every kind of girl out there. Few guys too. None of them have ever called that fulfilling. ‘Awesome’, yeah, ‘cause I am good and I have a lot of practice. But fulfilling- I’m not talking about having a religious get-together here. I’m talking about- get up. Get up!” 

He’d surged to his feet, rounded the table with his fingers beckoning sharply. “Come on, on your toes.“

Castiel pushed himself out of his chair- Dean reached before he was fully straightened and pressed their lips together, hard and firm and for all of one second before he shoved away in an angry gesture-

\- Dean, always shoving away at what he really wanted. The thought flashed through Castiel’s puzzled mind, and it seemed like an important piece of information to him all of a sudden.

Dean’s lips curled as he took two steps back and leaned an insolent hip against the table. “At least I got that one in,” he snorted. “You can freak out now.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Castiel said while thinking; derision, that was also part of a pattern he knew.

Dean’s expression shifted from hard to puzzled to bewildered with a side of irritated. “What did you say?”

“That’s not the best you can do, but it wasn’t that bad. Why would I...’freak out’?” 

“...Can I freak out instead?” Dean asked in an odd voice, staring at him.

“I don’t know, do you _want_ to-“

“Why-...what-” Dean’s expression oscillated like a fallen coin and then landed anger side up. “What do you mean, not that bad?! Dude, you have zero frame of reference.”

A breathless moment of silence.

“You are _not- you are, aren’t you!_ You just compared me to a fucking demon!” said Dean, surging to his feet.

“No,” said Castiel, a little irritated at the return of shouting. “I was comparing you to you. I’ve seen you do that to a number of people by now, you aren’t usually that abrupt.” 

Dean’s jaw dropped.

“May I?” Castiel asked, taking that final step between them. 

Dean stared at him as if he’d teleported instead of moved through normal space. “Huh?”

Castiel put a deliberate hand on Dean’s shoulders - suddenly as rigid as the most draconian of Heavenly rules - and another on Dean’s ribs and pulled his friend to him and pressed their mouths together.

Dean’s body convulsed once, one massive twang- but Castiel didn’t let go. He had expected that. Because a part of him _knew_ this, he realized now. They knew each other on some levels after all they’d been through. Castiel knew Dean; he’d caught the hunter off guard, but even if Dean had seen it coming, he would still have fought against it just a bit because- well, _Dean_ , ragged prickly soul, kicking and biting against fate and angels and God and everything. Because of that.

Castiel kept the touch of lips somewhat light since he’d known there’d be half a struggle and a bitten off swearword, and he didn’t want to bruise this man who’d been through a lot, who liked a fight but who could also be gentle, and push away anger to hold a friend in need.

Dean had frozen now. Their bodies were close together. Dean’s fist was gripping the trench coat hard enough to crack seams. But he wasn’t pushing away. Castiel pressed just a bit harder, hands, fingers, mouth- got a small reaction, a softening of the tension. Good enough. Better than Dean’s first effort at any rate.

Castiel stepped back and Dean almost fell forward as his hold on the trench coat gave him a jerk. Apparently he had not been expecting that either. Castiel steadied him, then removed his hands and put them in his pockets in a non-threatening way, since Dean’s eyes were wide and a little bit wild and there was anger still curling around his expression.

Dean made a noise that was half a growl, half a bewildered angry question.

“If you’re going to do it, do it right,” Castiel said in explanation. “Even I know that.”

Emotions bowled each other over in Dean’s expression and half formed unspoken words shoved each other out of the way. Tittered on the edge of anger, then fell back into plain amazement. He let out a puff of air. They were still close enough that it brushed Castiel’s face.

“Dean, I don’t know exactly what you want - because I do respect your privacy, so I am not looking,” Castiel said deliberately. “But don’t assume I don’t know what I want. I am still new at making my own decisions, but I am not a child for all that - I am older than your planet. And _this_ decision won’t end the world. So it’s only up to you and me.”

It _was_ inconsequential for two beings who regularly had to avert utter disaster by choosing between limited options - bad, worse and bury-a-brother, typically. The fact that it was optional and almost completely useless in the grand scheme of things was what made it small and precious, a gift rather than a moral obligation or a life-or-death choice. Castiel knew that the full meaning of sex was as beyond him as the notion of flying between the spheres was to Dean and for much the same reason - lack of context, basic knowledge and experience. But since it turned out against all expectations that Dean wanted to have sex with him - that in fact Castiel might have been a part of what he was missing in his life - then the angel would gladly add that to the large number of things great and small, elevating and desperate, sinful and righteous that they already shared. They could share something more - and he’d have the chance to _give_ something to this man rather than simply help him fight desperate battles and make hard choices. Why did Dean think this would ‘freak him out’?

Particularly after months of isolation. The thought of being close, recognized, touching... sharing something new and intimate with his friend was...maybe a little daunting for all its unknowns, but to Castiel it felt like he’d unlocked a random broom closet in the bunker and seen a small slice of Heaven’s Light filtering out from the crack.

Dean looked like he was about to speak. But he took a few steps away instead. He stared blindly in the direction of the pile of books he’d knocked over previously. One hand rose, palm over his mouth, thumb pressing into his cheek until the skin around it turned white, other hand fisted on his hip. Then he turned slowly and stared at Castiel, eyes hard and searching.

Their gazes met. For a few long seconds. 

Then Dean removed the hand and strode back towards Castiel with a firm, “Know what? Calling this a win and shutting my damn mouth.”

Which was an odd thing to say because when their lips touched, his mouth was in fact a little open. 

And there it was. His hands fastened on Castiel’s jawline and neck - firm, not hard, directing but not controlling, and...yes. That. _That_ was Dean. 

The kiss was short but intense, ending on a softer note as their lips separated and then pressed once more gently together before Dean leaned back. 

“That better?”

“Yes,” Castiel admitted and felt the mouth still an inch away from his quirk.

The expression vanished as Castiel put his hands back in the same position as before - it had worked the first time - and pulled Dean close again. This time he put more pressure into the touch of their lips, held tighter, gave that extra little push - because push and pull - yes because Dean was like that. Just like that. Dean did not freeze up or try to jerk away this time. There was just a moment of surprised stiffness at having the initiative taken from him again. Then one arm slid around Castiel’s waist, hauled him abruptly close. Now bodies were pressed flush. Dean twisted his head just a bit and his tongue slipped between Castiel’s lips; just a flick. Then a bit more, teasing his lips wider. Dean deepened the kiss and took control again, but there was...there was just that little feel there...that he wouldn’t mind tussling for it. 

Dean broke away abruptly with a small gasp. 

“So,” he said, then breathed in, tongue darting over his lower lip. “Better than Meg?”

“Yes,” Castiel answered honestly.

“And you know it.”

Castiel leaned in again- but this time his mouth connected with the corner of Dean’s cheek as the latter turned his head quickly.

“Cas? I need to know you’re sure about this.” It was a low whisper. “I still don’t think you really know what you’re getting into.”

“What?”

Dean leaned back just a couple of inches. One of his hands reached up, and his thumb brushed Castiel’s lower lip. “This. Are you sure...this...”

There was a callus on his thumb, it was rougher than his mouth. The gesture and the closeness and the whisper were different than the contact of lips and yet surprisingly similar in a way Castiel could not define. It almost distracted him from trying to (once again) fill the in the holes in Dean’s sentence. He opened his mouth - it was strangely dry despite a perfectly adequate degree of humidity maintained by the bunker’s systems. He swallowed-

Dean’s lips parted with a sudden hungry ‘ah’.

Castiel’s final Yes was never actually spoken out loud.

The library was quiet, peaceful and well warded. Castiel could let his senses spiral in, concentrate not only his vessel but his Being on this, Wings arcing slowly through the air to surround them in a little bubble, highlighting every sensation. Dean shifted in his arms. So...odd - and interesting - how Dean would surge forward like the tide, taking command one moment, then coax Castiel into taking it back again, and then-...the clock above the archway ticked over a minute, then another. The electric lights buzzed overhead. The seams in Castiel’s shirt creaked a little as Dean’s hand slipped beneath it, tugged it away from his pants, insinuated gently, slowly. Dean made a small sound in his throat, almost a tiny hum. Castiel was capturing every one of these sensations and moments, they felt incredibly important and precious. 

Dean’s fingers plucked gently at Castiel’s shirt. The aspirin in the glass fizzed. A creak of tendons as Dean shifted his position. That pleased noise, a mere vibration in his throat. The tendons in Sam’s legs were creaking too, the normal way a human body resisted immobility. Dean gripped just a little harder and moved his head so that their lips met at a different angle and a tongue tangled gently with his. 

Behind Castiel, Sam made a strangled coughing noise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: This chapter got out of hand lengthwise so I arbitrarily decided to cut it in two at the moment I gave Sam (who’d just wandered over with an aspirin to find out why the library was so quiet) an aneurysm.


	12. Freedom (With Booze and Strippers)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sex happens, and fair warning, my smut tends to be a bit odd at the best of times, and particularly when I throw in a celestial being of wavelengths and Grace riding a body like a taxicab and who has only technical knowledge to work on.

Dean had not heard the fizz of medication in water, the breath in his brother’s lungs, the beat of his heart or the rigid tension in Sam’s body, but he did hear the latter’s cough. He stiffened. The fingers that had wormed beneath Castiel’s shirt to gently touch skin were suddenly absent. 

Then Dean was a foot away as if he’d teleported. He was staring at his brother. His brother was staring at them. Sam was standing in the kitchen beyond the library’s arch, holding a glass of water with an aspirin/antacid mix sending up its last bubbles of carbon dioxide. 

The hush of the room shattered. “Dude! Bit of privacy?!” 

“…This is our library,” said Sam blankly (and quite reasonably in Castiel’s opinion.)

“Yeah? So?!”

Castiel looked at Dean. He’s off guard, he thought. He did not want his brother to know and this makes him aggressive. Being embarrassed and vulnerable makes him irritated and defensive. I need to remember that, thought Castiel, finding another little piece of the puzzle that was Dean Winchester. Nothing related to anything elevating such as his soul. This was the part of Dean that threw beer bottles, punched stuff and shoved away at what he wanted. Not as essential as information about the immortal flame within him, but it felt important anyway.

Sam opened his mouth, shut it, gave his head a hard shake and lifted his hand. “Just- okay, put this one to rest for me. Tell me this is new. I’m not walking around with a big hole in my memory around you two hooking up, right?” his voice had risen sharply on the last words.

Dean’s jaw worked. His neck was red. 

“This is new,” Castiel assured him 

That got him a heavy look from both brothers. Castiel had spoken without thinking, used to being a witness and talking without consequences. 

“Okay. Good then.” Sam nodded. Then blinked and nodded again.. “Yeah. I am not even remotely surprised.”

“You’re _not?_ ” Dean said as if this was an insult.

“Are you kidding me? I just got a concentrated dose of you-and-Cas memories dumped into my brain all at once less than twelve hours ago, and when you see them back to back and without the distraction of nearly dying once a week, it’s just really- I mean - you sure this wasn’t going on in Purgatory already?” 

“What? No!”

“Not even a foxhole kind of thing? You were wrecked when you came back without him, man, even back then I wondered-“

“No!”

“Purgatory was stressful, we focused on survival,” Castiel said.

“What the hell you mean, concentrated- I wasn’t- what do you mean, asshole?” Dean snapped, still giving anger a good workout. Not that this impressed his brother. Sam’s face twisted into a ragged smile. 

”I mean you kept his _coat_ , Dean, after he disappeared in that lake - you kept it in the Impala’s trunk for weeks and then you moved it to every new car we stole. You use my shirts for rags within ten days if I don’t rescue them. Oh, and let’s not forget you and Cas have this - how’d he put it once? ‘Deep bond’”. This was illustrated with exaggerated air quotes from the hand not holding the glass. Dean made a weird sound in his throat. “How he always answers your prayers at the drop of a hat if he can? And stands too close to you- and you grouse about it but man do you ever let him get away with it. And those deep significant looks you guys always share-“

“You can leave now.”

Sam snorted. “Hey, this is _our_ library! All I wanted was a glass of water- do you think I wanted to walk in on that when my head is already spinning? And you talk to _me_ about privacy? Seriously, both of you. Don’t do this in the middle of the bunker where your brother can walk in on you. Get a room!”

“Alright,” said Castiel a bit uncertainly, but since the brothers were getting argumentative, it might be good to accede to Sam’s request. 

Dean looked around in surprise when Castiel touched his shoulder-

\- and staggered.

“Whoa!”

He looked wildly around his bedroom. Then he struck away Castiel’s hand. “Whoa! What the hell, Cas!”

“...He said to...Was that an expression?”

Dean stared at him...then started to laugh like a man taking a swan-dive off of a ledge of tension right into a pool of hysteria.

He took in a few ragged breaths to force himself to stop, lifted his head- took one look at Castiel’s face and he was laughing again, this time a wide open laugh without the previous ragged tone to it. Then he had to go lean against the nearby wall to stay upright. 

“Dean?!” came a worried voice down the hall.

Dean made weak waving motions in Castiel’s direction and went to poke his head out the door. “It’s- it’s okay, Sam! He just took you literally - how else was that going to go down?” He had to catch the doorjamb for support. Castiel realized he hadn’t heard Dean laugh like that in a very long while. “Whoo! Oh yeah. We’re fine.”

“Sounds like it.” Castiel could hear the smile in Sam’s voice. 

“Hey, it was your suggestion!”

“You know damn well I didn’t mean- ugh.” 

“And thanks for that!” His brother’s disgusted snort made Dean laugh all the harder. Then he gestured abruptly back at Castiel, a light of devilry in his eyes ”Here, Cas, take off your tie.”

“My-“

“Come on!”

“Why?” Castiel’s fingers started on the knot- but Dean strode over, jerked it only halfway loose and lifted it over his head.

“Tradition,” he stated, went back to the door, still snorting and chuckling, and dropped it on the knob.

Sam’s reaction was immediate and loud (and presumably also traditional?) “Argh! Dean! I did not need to know that!”

Dean laughed maniacally and slammed the door, then he headed back to Castiel.

“I’m sorry, Dean, I misunderst- hmf-“

Dean had grabbed him and kissed him the same way as before. It occurred to Castiel - briefly, in passing - that if he really was the piece missing out of Dean’s life, then it made sense that the tough irascible hunter had an unexpected store of rare patience for angels and their mix-ups. 

Lips trailed against his- broke away briefly, Dean was still fighting a few chuckles escaping him. He stepped right up to Castiel, mouth at his temple- and then dropped his head to the angel’s shoulder, muffling a snicker in the trench coat with ‘room’ at the end.

A few deep breaths later, Dean put a hand on the corner of Castiel’s jaw and caught his lips again, tongue probing - little shivers down his vessel’s spine and blood quickening. Dean’s other hand had, unnoticed, pawed his shirt out of his pants and was barely touching the skin, it tickled and made the shivers more acute. 

It seemed a very natural thing to do to lift his arms and drape them around Dean’s shoulders. It got them out of the way, it brought their bodies closer together and it lifted the shirt to encourage the whole hand to wander. 

Fingers curved warm against his skin, pressing him into Dean’s chest, and the kiss got deeper, more intent for a minute. Then Castiel felt the lips against his curve into a grin. Dean broke away, slid his hand from Castiel’s back, the other one dropping to his shoulder-

\- and shoved him.

The net effect of the move was that Dean himself staggered back under his own impulsion when Castiel, taken by surprise, failed to move a single inch.

Castiel stared at him in concern. “Dean, I am not trying to make you feel bad, but I am getting confused.”

Dean straightened up, dragged his hand down his face and over a ragged smirk, then he leaned his whole body weight on Castiel via one elbow planted on the angel’s chest. 

“No, you see, I was going to push you backwards so you’d stagger a few steps and end up on the bed,” he said conversationally.

“Oh.”

“It was going to be hot,” Dean confided. 

“...Oh.”

“Yeah,” said Dean, rubbing his chin. 

Castiel glanced back over his shoulder at the bed three feet away. “I could still-“

“Don’t do me no favors.”

Castiel looked back. The expression on Dean’s face didn’t match the words. There was warmth there and _knowledge_ and the tremble of lips about to curve into a familiar grin. 

Castiel felt lighter. As if he’d been gearing up to study some difficult script only to find out it was mostly in pictures and not that hard to follow after all. It was a language he knew.

He leaned forward, shifting Dean’s weight without a thought to speak in his ear, lips brushing the whorls - a faint shiver in the body near his. “Dean, you can’t make me stagger without a large psychic force. Or possibly explosives. Not unless I let you.”

“Hmf.” 

Castiel slipped an arm around Dean’s waist, pulling him tight. “I could carry you,” he said experimentally (and also correctly). 

“Fuck no you can’t.”

“Dean, I could carry you and the bed together.”

“Yeah. But you won’t carry either of us if you know what’s good for you.” The faint challenge in Dean’s voice ratcheted up the shivers of tension. 

“We could walk over there together.”

“Yeah, sure, holding hands maybe? Wanna skip too?”

“That is sarcasm. Isn’t it.”

“Give the angel a prize,” Dean said a second before he laid claim to Castiel’s mouth again, tension breaking like a wave. 

Castiel gripped him lightly, hands sliding up Dean’s back. When Dean lessened the pressure on their mouths to take a quick breath of air-

Dean yelled in alarm as Castiel let himself fall straight backwards. The hunter bucked and threw out an arm to save them both from hitting the ground- but they landed full on the bed instead. On the side table a lady magazine fell to the floor with a flap under the displacement of air. 

“We’re on the bed,” Castiel pointed out - redundantly, mainly just to see what Dean would say.

“Show-off.”

Dean got his knees under him, put a foot of space between them. He licked his lips and glanced at the pillow nearby. “Is this alright?”

Castiel tilted his head. Since he’d gotten them here, it was obviously alright. 

“Cas...I got to warn you. I’m the kind of guy...I’m a _guy_ , and this is close to the point of no return, so...if you wanted to take this slow, maybe not jump into anything right away, we should probably-“

“Are you still not comfortable with same-gender intercourse?” Castiel hazarded. 

“Huh? No, I’m saying you shouldn’t feel-...Dude...we gotta work on your pillow talk. That was...all kinds of wrong. Boner kryptonite.”

Castiel glanced down. Dean had said that, but his stimulation still seemed adequate. 

Dean’s gaze drifted to the door out of the room, thoughtful. “I guess that still feels a little weird. Never went there until recently. I’m not a closet case - and I never had nothing against anybody on that count.” 

“I know,” Castiel said softly. A bright savagely free soul like this one would never resent anyone for something so small in the grand scheme of things. Not even himself, though Dean could normally give guilt, self-doubt and self-loathing an exceedingly good workout if given the opportunity.

“Yeah,” said Dean as if Castiel had said that out loud. “Didn’t bother me, but didn’t feel the urge to try. It was easier with chicks. But I knew I wouldn’t kick Doctor Sexy out of bed for eating cookies.”

Castiel frowned faintly, trying to figure that one out.

Dean stared at his expression as if trying to capture every aspect of it, eyebrows, throat, gaze lingering on Castiel’s mouth...

“I never said this before because it was always so complicated between us, but...from that time when it was you, me and Sam against the end days, I knew I wouldn’t kick you out of bed for eating cookies either.”

Something hard and meaningful in his gaze forestalled Castiel’s obvious “I don’t need to eat”.

“I wouldn’t kick you out if you set the bed on fire.”

Dean lifted a hand, drifted a thumb across Castiel’s lips.

“Wouldn’t kick you out of bed if you opened a hole to Purgatory on the headboard.” 

Castiel tensed. The thumb swept to his cheekbone, as if measuring something on his face.

“Wouldn’t kick you out for cutting bait with the angel tablet. Or for all the rest of the misguided self-sacrificing stupid shit you ever did.”

Castiel opened his mouth...swallowed any words he might have said. Dean’s eyes were fixed on his, and they were like steel. 

“I am going to tell it to you straight and you are going to listen hard,” Dean said quietly, gathering the trench coat’s lapels in his fists. “This? This is not like those one-night stands in the motels. This is about _us_ , and if we do this, you cannot flap your wings and go to fucking Honolulu for months without a bloody word. Or -” seams cracked as Dean hauled on the coat, cinching it tight- “or throw yourself on another grenade without asking me if I got the pin first. Got it?”

“Dean-“

“ _Got it?!_ ”

“Yes.”

“Now, I’m done asking you if you’re okay with this,” Dean said, voice soft again, eyes still hard. “Because I think we know each other that well at least. We know what this means. To us. I have to believe you know this. So, you don’t like anything I do, that’s okay, that’s absolutely fine, I understand, you just tell me to slow down, or stop - or you punch me into next week, I don’t care, but I’m done asking you every step of the way like I’m trying to talk us out of this- I’m just done, man.”

Castiel shifted against the bed and felt as if he was allowed to speak again. “Was that all entirely about sex?” 

“No,” said Dean after a moment of silence.

“Alright.” It made the whole succession of sentences less confusing. A little less confusing.. “So. You’re right. We know each other. This is, as you succinctly put it, about us. I won’t go to Honolulu. Or Jupiter. I don’t want to hit you ever again - if I’m in my right mind - but I understand that I can ask you to stop if I do not like having sex with you. To know that, though, we would need to try.”

“That’s...” Dean seemed to look for a word, while his hands loosened on Castiel’s coat. ”...to the point,” he finally concluded. “Okay then. You. Don’t move a muscle. I’ll be right back.”

Dean quickly rolled off the bed and made his way to the bathroom. There was a scuffling noise of fingers searching a toiletry kit. A muffled swearword. The clatter of a toiletry kit’s contents getting summarily emptied out into the sink. Then Dean made his way back to the bed, giving the prizes in his hand a quick once-over. He dropped them on the bedside table, then glanced down at Castiel (who had not moved a micron, other than the necessary breathing and blood flow that kept his vessel in good condition without needless repairs).

“Right. These- I guess I better give you a quick rundown. It’s...I need to make sure you understand-“

“I thought you were done with that.”

“I know I said that, but...that’s probably not fair of me.” His expression had softened, he looked a little rueful. “When it comes to the actual mechanics of this- I mean, this is, uh, new to you, and-“

Castiel leaned over, picked up the prophylactics. “Condoms.” He put them down briskly, picked up the tube. “Anal lubricant.” He put that down firmly too. “Remember, I have been observing you for a few months now-“

“Yeah, Cas? There will _never_ be a time when that is not creepy,” Dean said calmly. “You need to stop reminding me about that.”

Castiel looked him in the eye appraisingly. “Boner kryptonite?”

“Yep.” Dean’s lips twitched and his eyes crinkled with smile lines.

“Very well. If you do anything that I do not understand, I will ask you. But you do not like talking about these things, even with Sam. When you do, half the words are missing and the othes are replaced with sports terminology I barely understand. So can we just-“

“You’re right, fuck it. Stop me if I go too fast or you get more confused than usual,” said Dean, getting his shirt and t-shirt off in two swift efficient moves. “Lose the coat and jacket.”

Castiel did as requested, squirming out of both articles and dropping them on the floor. He reached for the buttons of his shirt-

“Nuh-uh-uh,” said Dean, catching Castiel’s hands and removing them. There was something both amused and predatory about him now as he moved onto the bed, knees on either side of Castiel’s legs. 

Then he started unbuttoning Castiel’s shirt. Slowly. Watching every one of his fingers’ movements as if he was taking apart the Impala’s engine block for a deep tune-up. Dean’s mouth was slightly open and his eyes were narrowed and he tilted his head as if he did not want to risk losing a single moment.

\- It occurred to Castiel that he had seen Dean with four different men now and a lot of women. But he’d never seen Dean undress any of them quite like this. With this much focus and attention. 

The final button undone, Dean slid his hands back up, parting the white cloth like the red sea. Then he leaned back and stared. Castiel lifted his arms to slip out of the shirt- but he got that tsking sound forbidding him to move again.

“Yeah,” said Dean softly, his eyes traveling up and down for the fourth time, from the prone angel’s face down his chest to his belt and back again. 

Then a faint frown crossed his face. Like lighting his right hand reached across to pinch the tender skin on the underside of his left arm hard enough to leave a violent red mark.

“Just checking,” he muttered.

”...You know, if this was an illusion, that wouldn’t have-“

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get the silver knife and the rest of the kit out later, but right now I can’t be bothered.”

His hands followed the trail of his gaze and Castiel found himself shivering - in both the material plane and the higher spheres. The calluses on the hunter’s fingers dragged up his skin, brushed over a nipple, until the hands reached Castiel’s shoulders and eased the shirt off. Castiel curled forward to let him maneuver it off his arms; one of Dean’s hands slipped from his shoulder to beneath his back to lift him and clear the shirt off in one movement. The shirt ended up on the floor somewhere near the coat, and their chests ended up nearly touching as Dean looked down at him. 

“S’funny how one moment you’re this immovable object and the next I can actually carry you.”

“That’s because of my-“

“Not a request for information, Cas.”

“Oh.”

“Not yet.” Dean leaned forward and kissed the corner of his neck just below the jaw, feather-light, making Castiel’s vessel twitch and thrum unexpectedly. “Keep it. Two, three days from now.” He did the kiss again. His mouth was two inches from Castiel’s ear, the words seemed to breeze up his skin and exist only for him. “When it’s you, me and Sam driving down the highway. You’ll know the right time. Three, four hours down the road, we listened to the tapes, radio’s all Country, it’s starting to get quiet and the drive feels long. That’s when you lean forward, plonk your elbows near our heads like you used to and tell us all about it.”

“That’s very specific,” said Castiel - while in the higher spheres, his Wings unfurled and stretched, luxuriating in that sudden image...the three of them riding together, no longer separated in their respective cells. Talking about hunts and angels and the best kind of junk foods and how many mistakes Midwest radio televangelists made in one sermon, like they once had.

“Hmm. Yep. I might have gotten a few details wrong, but one thing I know is...not the time for that now.”

Castiel was back on the bed, pressed down into the cover, sheets and mattress by Dean’s body, and Dean kissed him in a way that was much hungrier than before, darting in deep with his tongue. 

This was not something Castiel knew about from observation. Dean rarely kissed anyone like this before. But he imitated what Dean had done earlier, slipping his hand around Dean’s neck to pull him in, hold him there, encourage, let his own lips and tongue explore...Dean made that small sub-vocal sound again, which Castiel was now considering a marker for appreciation. 

Dean broke away in the end to take in a breath - though he kept their mouths less than an inch apart. Castiel could feel the air from a low chuckle on his lips. 

“Dude, I have to ask...where the hell did you learn that? You watched how much porn already?”

“Not that much. It confused me. There were a lot of ways to have sex, but the emotional connection- the participants weren’t enjoying themselves all that much when I looked more closely. Though when I kissed Meg-“

“Ah, Meg? Also a cold shower.”

“Very well.”

Dean straightened up again and then did a repeat of the shirt removal but this time with Castiel’s pants, shoes, socks and underwear. 

Castiel had been faintly concerned that his vessel might not react correctly or to Dean’s satisfaction; Dean prided himself as a lover and would expect signs of appreciation. Castiel could possibly manipulate his vessel if he needed to, but he had not liked the idea, it felt dishonest. And his concerns were unfounded. Even though Dean’s hands hadn’t lingered on any erogenous zones Castiel was aware of, his vessel was getting into the spirit of things, his penis hardening and already half erect in its nest of short black hairs. Dean’s eyes lingered and his smile turned sensuous.

Then he got to his knees, toed off his boots and socks at top speed and started undoing his jeans just as fast-

Castiel reached up, took him by the upper arms as gently as possible while still being firm, and spilled him onto the bed. That earned him a bitten off ‘Whoa!’ and a wild look, which melted into approval when Castiel got to work on getting Dean undressed the rest of the way. He had already concluded that he would have to throw out most of what he thought he knew about having sex with Dean, because apparently having an angel and the piece he was missing in the mix changed the rules. 

Instead of relying on his unintentional spying, he’d have to rely on what Dean was doing with him now. Undressing each other was part of the process. And it was a good part, if his vessel’s reactions to date and the look on Dean’s face was anything to go by. It was a part that was getting carved into angelic memory, which was as solid and everlasting as the laws of gravity as long as nobody drilled into it. 

He did not try to replicate Dean’s slow gestures, since he did not think he would get the same thing out of it. But Dean didn’t seem to mind the brusqueness, not at all. There was a strange smile on his face and his eyes were fixed on Castiel’s. When Castiel turned to drop Dean’s clothes on the floor with the rest-

Dean surged up, caught him around the shoulders. This time Castiel had seen it coming, had expected it from some subtle sign in Dean’s body language and eyes - or just from his knowledge of the man. He let himself get shoved down on the bed-

\- really hard. Dean had expected resistance. The bed shuddered, mattress springs protested. Dean looked concerned, then relaxed back into that pleased smirk when Castiel didn’t even look surprised, much less discomfited by the force applied. 

“Maybe we should come up with some kind of signal-” Castiel started to say but didn’t get much further.

Dean’s entire naked body coiled against his in the same way Dean’s mouth covered Castiel’s partly open one. 

Hands roamed, and Dean’s mouth joined in this time, once Castiel had been adequately silenced.

Castiel let him take the lead, merely letting his fingers drift down the muscles of Dean’s back. Indescribable...the relief of doing this again but this time having his touch felt, seeing Dean respond. Having that little sub-vocal ‘Hmm’ when he touched somewhere that was appreciated. The slight flick of dorsal muscles when his hands trailed too lightly and tickled. Beneath his fingers the buzz and twitch of Dean’s nerve were like stars igniting, burning and going nova in a far-off galaxy. To see that reaction to _his_ touch, to his presence-...it was like Heaven’s light after years in Purgatory’s cold shadows. 

Dean lifted his head, licked his lips and watched his hand sweep down Castiel’s thigh. 

“Why the hell I didn’t do this years ago I have no bloody clue,” he said absently. 

“Why...didn’t you..?” Castiel brought his attention back to bear with some difficulty. 

“Probably because of the apocalypse,” Dean said as if he could barely remember what that was and did not think it a very good reason in retrospect. “Then things got a bit messy.”

An understatement if there ever was one. But Dean didn’t seem to want to linger there, he added, “Then the fucking Leviathans tried to eat everybody. That kind of blew.”

“And Purgatory.”

“And you were weird when you got back.”

That centered him. Castiel frowned. “Yes. I remember that now. I’m sorry-“

“No more sorries,” Dean interrupted. “Done with the sorries. Just...”

He leaned his head down and pressed his forehead slowly against Castiel’s. Eyelashes fluttered against Castiel’s brow. A whisper brushed his cheek. “Can we not mess this up anymore? Cas? Please?”

“I will try,” Castiel whispered back. “I’m not very good at not messing up.”

That earned him a soft snort. “Right. We’ve both gone pro at that game. We’re obviously made for each other.”

“Do you really think so?” Castiel asked, intrigued. Come to think of it, that would explain a lot. 

“...uh...” Dean leaned back and grinned lopsidedly. “Sure. We’ll go with that. But I warn you, that’s as mushy as I get.”

Then the kissing and the manual exploration resumed for a good number of minutes. 

“Okay,” Dean finally said. His breath was coming faster now, his cheeks and lips were flushed. He reached for the lubricant and held it up and opened his mouth.

Castiel gave him a narrowed-eyed look.

Dean held up his other hand in surrender. “Alright. Put the mighty smite-me glare away. You want to figure it out as we go, we’ll play it your way until you say otherwise.”

“I already told you that-“

“Gotcha. Ah. You okay being-...you know, the-”

”Dean.”

“Yup, fine.”

Dean squeezed out some of the lubricant onto his fingers, squirmed down until he was a little lower in the bed, and then- Castiel blinked a few times. Startled at how strongly his vessel had reacted to both the caress of cold slick gelled fingers at the anal ring of muscles and the swipe of tongue on his penis. Two different stimuli, two very different reactions, in the same way a bonfire both glowed and threw up sparks. 

For a few moments he forgot Dean, he forgot that this was a reciprocal act, he just witnessed in fascination the effects on the body he possessed - Jimmy’s body once, but rebuilt by a higher power now. The guilt of his dead host laid to rest after this many years, Castiel had learned to think of it as _his_ vessel, not stolen or borrowed anymore, a form he was free to exist in, and for once, surprisingly, enjoy. The ripples of pleasure made it all the way up his spine, they flared in crescendo, increasing in a feedback loop, his erection and the anal muscles getting more and more sensitized every new minute it lasted.

It was a very physical sensation...the greater Being that was Castiel felt it in something like awe as the echoes of it reached him like waves from a distant tsunami reaching a beach on the far side of the world. The nerve flares alone were rather pretty to watch. 

But what mattered to him was not the hedonistic pleasure. It was the care Dean was taking, at odds with the efficiency that he’d shown in previous encounters. The attention he was putting into making this feel good for the person he’d missed and who’d become such a huge part of his life. In the same way he’d become a part of Castiel’s.

The warm, pleased thought from the Being created a new more intense feedback loop that shot back along nerves already thrumming. The bonfire full of glows, crackles and sparks - 

\- suddenly exploded.

Castiel realized he was panting, muscles twanging. He blinked a few times, realigning his mundane three-dimensional vision with his higher Senses, and glanced down.

Dean was wiping his mouth. His other fingers were still at work smoothing in lubricant in and around the anal muscles.

“That was fast,” Castiel said, surprised. Then he frowned. “Was it supposed to be that fast?” Wasn’t endurance something human males were supposed to aim for? The actors in those movies, and Dean’s previous encounters, had taken longer to get to this point. But they lacked the emotional connection he and Dean shared, that would make a difference.

Dean licked his lips, seemed to consider one of several possible answers. Then he smiled. “Nah, that’s pretty standard. Hell, if you’d lasted any longer I would have been offended.” His free hand gave Castiel’s thigh a reassuring pat. 

“Oh. Good.” 

“All good,” Dean agreed gently. Then his eyes drifted down as if he could see what his fingers were doing right through Castiel’s abdomen. “This bit though, we’re not hurrying. Not that you hurried that other bit, I mean. But this- we should take this bit slow.”

‘This bit’ took awhile, and the limited mobility imposed was frustrating, but Castiel let his hands roam where they could and admired the way Dean’s skin twitched and reacted to his touch, _his_ touch.

Finally Dean removed his fingers, got one of the condoms out of the little foil packet, got it on - muttering something a little defensive about aiming thousand yard stares at a guy’s privates until Castiel looked away. Then Dean nudged and maneuvered Castiel around until the angel was on his side and Dean right up behind him. A firm hand pushed Castiel’s legs up, bent them at the hip and knee. 

Castiel listened without comment to the last minute advice on what to do if anything hurt anywhere. He had the intuition that Dean had forgotten at some point that he was having sex with something quite other than human. He wasn’t tailoring his advice to a species that could sit in the middle of the sun for a few hours and only be bothered by having to shed radiation residue afterwards, like a dove shaking dust off its wings. But Castiel found he did not want to intrude that reality into this moment, this fragile oh-so-human moment. This mattered to Dean; Castiel could feel it in every movement. Dean was leaning forward so that he could keep his gaze fixed on Castiel’s profile, looking for signs of discomfort or distress. That care was in the hand on his hip, shaking in an effort to be gentle in contrast with the violent screams of pleasure Castiel could feel rip up and down Dean’s nervous system as he pushed gently in.

The act was like the previous fellatio, sensations and pleasure firing up from nerve bundles and distention sensors as Dean penetrated him in small stages, pushing a little further each time. But the best, the part that really mattered...

“Doin’...you’re doin’ great, Cas-” Dean gasped as he sheathed himself entirely in Castiel’s body, and then pressed a kiss to his shoulder where a Wing would emerge if it could fit into this space. 

...what really mattered was the warmth and presence pressed along his back. And the faint bleedoff he could not quite isolate himself from, this close. Dean’s backwash of feelings, the wonder and the joy and the wisp of ‘finally...I found it...I found him...’

Castiel reached around- realized that in this position, he couldn’t do much more than touch Dean’s hip that had pushed his own up a little to move into position, or Dean’s back. He pawed a bit-

“S’okay...try other things another time...let me drive today...” Dean’s voice was soft, broken by quick indrawn breaths; it brushed Castiel’s shoulder. The added sensation made his vessel shudder. He could feel along sensitized skin the way Dean’s lips curved into a smile. He could feel Dean - push and pull - move in and out of him. His friend’s hands held him close, gentle and firm, and he would occasionally drop that feather light kiss against Castiel’s shoulder, or on the back of his neck, or against his ear. Castiel could feel Dean’s body all along equally sensitized skin against his back, he could feel Dean _in_ him, moving gently, he could feel-

Castiel blinked. Hesitated- but Dean had said to say something if he had any concerns.

“Dean?”

“Hm?” The half-groan was cut off and Dean froze, half buried in Castiel’s body, hoisting himself on an elbow to look down at Castiel’s face in profile. “What? Is this hurting?”

“What? No, of course not. But- is that supposed to be happening?” Castiel craned his neck to look down at his groin. “I already ejaculated. I thought-“

Dean gasped and snorted against his shoulder. 

“Yeah- yeah, that’s okay, Cas, perfectly normal.” His next words were low and muffled against Castiel’s skin. “Yeah, got an angel who can say that stuff. With that voice. This is the most awesome thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“...Thank you? But what about-“

“Here, let me help you with that.”

The hand that had been resting on Castiel’s thigh rose to cover the uppity vessel’s brand new reaction to stimuli and applied a whole bunch more. And more. And more again as Dean timed his hand movements to his thrusts. Castiel had a feeling he should be trying to...hold out or something, stop the pleasure from getting out of hand right away- he was not much more successful than the first time, he didn’t know how to control this yet. Pleasure zigged and zagged upwards on the back of the two sets of sensations, entirely of its own volition and took his vessel with it, gasping and spilling and jerking into Dean’s hand after only a minute. 

“Damn,” Dean whispered like a sacrilegious prayer.

Then his movements and thoughts descended into the primal, joy and warmth buried under the basic rutting instinct- though there were echoes of something deep there, a proprietary growl, oddly thrilling, making Castiel’s Wings twitch in the upper spheres. Dean gasped and hauled him back against his erection and buried his face in Castiel’s hair and groaned. Surges of pleasure echoed from him, fierce and crude, in the final hard thrusts and a gasp.

Dean’s breath was fast and deep against the skin of Castiel’s back as the thrum of nerves slowly ebbed. He edged away, drawing out - making the vessel twitch and shiver. Cold air insinuated between them. Sweat had blossomed there from the contact, the excitement, the heat between their bodies. It cooled suddenly and made Castiel shiver. Dean turned slightly, dropping the twisted up prophylactic - ill-advisedly - on the floor beside the bed. When he turned back, Castle moved back an inch until he was pressed once more into Dean to get that warmth and contact again. Dean made a satisfied sound and wrapped his arms around the angel.

Eventually he stirred, lifted his head, dropped a kiss on the corner of Castiel’s jaw. 

“So,” Dean said, and paused.

Castiel absently dealt with sweat and semen clinging to him, while tallying the damage, so to speak; the quantity of hormones and neurochemicals released by all this was through the roof. The skin of his vessel felt three times more sensitive than usual - an effect he hoped wouldn’t last because the thought of getting wounded now made him wince, whereas he usually dropped the greater part of pain and injury off into the space that existed between vessel and Being, to be dealt with later. 

That space had absorbed a good portion of the pleasure he would have felt if he were human - but none of the intimacy, the sheer joy of _giving_ something to this ragged soul, this Righteous Man he’d saved from Hell and Fell for years ago, and Fell for again today, and tomorrow and tomorrow again if need be. 

That part warmed him and made his Being sing.

The physical part of it had been satisfying as well, even if a lot of context was still missing - but taking that into account, Castiel tried to judge what effect it would have had, had he been human, and ran out of estimates.

“I understand why mortals are so obsessed with sex now,” he said - noted in passing that his voice was more ragged than usual.

There was a breathless moment of silence behind him and then Dean started to chuckle. 

“Oh- oh, he finally gets it. Score, huh?” Dean kissed his shoulder one last time, then rolled over onto his back and stretching one arm. The other was still caught around the angel. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh so much before,” said Castiel in soft wonder, turning around and propping himself up onto one elbow to look down at the prone hunter. 

Dean’s eyes had closed. “Yeah, well, you may be an awe-inspiring angel of the lord and a terrifying guy in a knife fight, but you’re also a real dork sometimes.” He was smiling. 

“You were so angry with me...”

“Oh, I’m still blazing mad,” Dean said with much the same tone and expression.

Castiel frowned. “You don’t sound angry.”

Dean heaved a contented sigh, eyes still closed. “Nah. I think you found the way to defuse me.”

“But-“

He was interrupted by a sound slap on his rear. “Hey, let’s just agree to blame that heavenly bitch and leave it at that.”

“But I tried to kill you.”

Dean’s eyes shot open. “Huh? When?!”

“In the Crypt, back when we found the-”

“Oh, Cas, come on. That was months ago and you weren’t right in the head. Some of my best friends have tried to kill me in those circumstances. Hell, Sammy’s had multiple shots at that hoop. Trust me, that just gets you a Dean Winchester’s inner circle membership card.” 

“...You have a -“

Dean interrupted with snicker which was then pulled apart by a sudden yawn.

“You need to sleep,” Castiel advised him, touching Dean’s chest and noting how relaxed his muscles were.

“Yeah...longest day ever. What time is it?” He craned his neck and glanced at the bedside alarm clock “Not even midnight? Thought it’d be the graveyard hour at least.”.

A short silence fell. Dean shifted and looked at Castiel out of the corner of his eyes.

“You, uh...you don’t sleep.”

“No.”

“You...have something to do? You can stay here if you want,” Dean added quickly. 

“I can?”

“Uh, yes,” Dean said as if surprised at the question.

“Good. I want to stay.” 

“...Okay,” Dean said as if equally surprised at the answer.

“Go to sleep. I’ll watch over you,” said the Seraph used to millions of years of patrol. This qualified as the best of the entire lot. 

Dean made a wheezy noise. “Guardian angel pure and bright- bet that’s not what that Christian Hour moment had in mind.” The grin melted into something warmer, fonder. “Bet it wasn’t what mom had in mind either...but hell, I’ll take it.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Here. This is how you do it.”

“Do what?”

Dean hauled the sheets out from under their bodies, giving a few stains an indifferent wipe before ignoring them. He pulled the covers up over them, then tugged Castiel until the angel was on his side next to Dean.

“Like this.” Dean’s arm fit around him, then reached up to push Castiel’s head down into the crook of Dean’s shoulder. “It’s the traditional way of sleeping together.”

“Oh? I’ve never seen you sleep like this with anyone.“

“It’s the traditional way of sleeping with an angel,” Dean grunted.

“You’ve never slept with an angel before. Not in the same bed. You’ve slept while I was sitting in a-“

“It’s tradition anyway. Shut up and take it like a man.”

“I’m-“

“You say anything and I’m making you sit on the floor.”

Castiel decided not to say anything. It wasn’t the best of defensive positions but he certainly did like it; the closeness, the warmth of Dean’s body, the thrum of Dean’s blood and heartbeat, his Soul gleaming like a newly washed diamond...

There was a fine tension in Dean’s frame. “Gotta be honest, Cas,” he murmured. “This feels...unusual. I might not get to sleep. Can’t sleep without half a bottle of Jack anyway. Whatever,” he rubbed his face with his free hand (the other hand looped around and was resting on Castiel’s hip). He closed his eyes. 

Two minutes later, he was snoring. 

Castiel let his mental map twitch- and grimaced, He could no longer feel Sam. But his other friend would surely be alright, and Sam knew to pray for his help now if anything happened. 

Castiel let his Wings drift over, protecting. Dean snored some more, his frame relaxed. 

It was in appearance similar to all the nights that had come before. But Dean’s leg was tangled with his, his arm was a warm pressure along Castiel’s back and Dean’s faint echoes of thought and warmth held memories of him now, and Castiel was _home._

Morning could take its time coming. Castiel, a free angel beholden to neither Heaven, Hell, nor the Host, was no longer in any hurry to see it arrive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end for now. But there’s more to this relationship I'd like to unpack, since in this fic Cas still doesn’t ‘get’ a lot about sex. This is just the start. Half the battle is hooking up with someone, the other half is putting up with them for the long haul. I’ve got a sequel in the works (about 60% written at this point) in Dean’s POV. Which means a LOT more swearing, and a somewhat more earthy approach ^_^
> 
> I also have another fic ready about Demon Knight Dean, with Crowley, suicide, eternal damnation, a lot of violence and Cas having to flex his angel muscles on a Really Bad Day. It’s a comedy. It should be coming out in the next couple days.


End file.
